Page:In ghostly Japan (IA cu31924014202687).pdf/227



HE daimyō’s wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei,—the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, and of the gladness of spring. She thought of her children. She thought of her husband’s various concubines,—especially the Lady Yukiko, nineteen years old.