Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/188

174 interest in the case was replaced by a deep and friendly one. Oka’s wife, who has seen so many cases of fever, and so many lives allowed to slip through the native practitioners’ fingers, is unceasing in her praises of the ship’s doctor, whose skill and resourcefulness seem to her simple mind nothing short of miraculous. Indeed, she almost forgets to give the family god, before whose impassive figure a light has been kept burning night and day during her mistress’s illness, any credit for Mousmé’s wonderful recovery.

However, when she remembers it, she in penitence places additional offerings of fruit and flowers on the little shelf on which the image stands, and when I go down to give some order to Oka, I see her prostrated, in the comparative gloom of their basement bed-chamber, pouring out her supplications, whilst the scent of burnt incense pervades the house more than ever.