Page:Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan.djvu/238

. If I were forsaken by him in his palace, I should be laughed at."

After she retired this poem came:

"That idle fancy of the sleeves he has not forgotten." This pleased her.

Her poem:

The next night the moon was very bright. Here and there people were gazing at it. The next morning the Prince wanted to send her a poem and was waiting for the page [to take it]. The lady, too, had noticed the whiteness of the hoar-frost [and sent this poem]:

The Prince was sorry the lady had got ahead of him. He said to himself: "The night was passed yearning after the beloved and frost—"

Just then the page presented himself and His Highness said, with some temper, handing his letter to the page: "Her messenger has already come; I am beaten. I wish you had come earlier." The page ran to her, and said: "I had been summoned before your messenger got there. I was late and he is angry." The lady read the letter: 178