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222 household were brought out on to the steps and carefully tuned to the same pitch. A grand concert followed, the piece Was ever such a day? being performed with admirable effect. Even the grooms and labourers who were loitering amid the serried ranks of coaches drawn up outside the great gates, little as they usually cared for such things, on this occasion pricked up their ears and were soon listening with lips parted in wonder and delight. For it was indeed impossible that the strange shrill descants of the Spring Mode, enhanced as they were by the unusual beauty of the night, should not move the most impercipient of human creatures.

The concert continued till dawn. As a return-tune Gay Springtide Pleasures was added to the programme, and Prince Sochi no Miya carried the vocal music back very pleasantly to the common mode by singing Green Willows in the words of which Genji also joined.

Already the morning birds were clamouring in a lusty chorus to which, from behind the curtains, the Empress Akikonomu listened with irritation.

It would have been hard in these days to find a mote in the perfect sunshine of Genji’s prosperity and contentment. But it was noticed with regret by his friends, as a circumstance which must of necessity be painful to him, that Murasaki still bore him no child. It was felt, however, that this misfortune was to some extent remedied by the arrival of his handsome natural daughter (for so Tamakatsura was regarded by the world at large). The evident store which Genji himself set by this lady, becoming a matter