Page:Sidnay McCall--The dragon painter2.djvu/269

 Down in the lower level of the garden, too, springtime busied itself with beauty. The potted plants, once Umè-ko's loved charges, had become now, quite mysteriously to himself, Tatsu's companions and his special care. Among the more familiar growths a few foreign bushes had been given place, a rose, a heliotrope, and a small, frightened cyclamen. Slips of chrysanthemum needed already to be set for the autumn yield. Tatsu, watering and tending them, thought with wistful sadness upon these plans for future enjoyment. "We are all bound upon the wheel of life," he said to them. "Would that with me, as you, the turning were but for a single season!"

"My son," the elder man began abruptly, at a certain noonday meal about the middle of the month, "how is it that you never go with me to the temple on the hill?"

Tatsu looked up from his rice-bowl in some surprise. The relations between these two, though externally kind, had never ap-