THE DRAGON PAINTER
"One must not think of personal happiness,—it is wicked. Does not even your old mumbling abbot on the hill tell you so much? And now, of all times, do not start the dreaming. You will be sacrificed to art," said Mata, gloomily.
"Do I look like my mother, Mata San?"
The old dame wiped her eyes on her sleeve that she might see more clearly. Something in the girl's pure, upraised face caught at her heart, and the tears came afresh. "Wait," she whispered; "stay where you are, and you shall see your mother's face." She went into her tiny chamber, and from her treasures brought out a metal mirror given her by the young wife, Uta-ko. "Look,—close," she said, placing it in Umè's hand. "That is the bride of nineteen years ago. Never have you looked so like her as at this hour!"
Kano came back alone,—tired, dusty, and discouraged. Tatsu had escaped him, he said, at the first glimpse of the Sumida River.
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