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234 this glorious home-coming and restoration, when at last they came, brought joy to every hut and hovel in the land, but to her only a hundredfold increase of her former misery. For of what comfort to her were his triumphs, if she must hear of them from other lips?

The aunt had the satisfaction of seeing her prophecies fulfilled. It was of course out of the question that anyone would own to an acquaintance with a person living in such miserable squalor as now surrounded the princess. There are those, says the Hokkekyō, whom even Buddha and his saints would have hard work to redeem; and certainly this lady had allowed her affairs to drift into a disorder which the most generous patron would shrink from attempting to set straight. This contempt for all the rest of the world, this almost savage unsociability, was of course no invention of her own; it was merely an attempt to perpetuate the haughty demeanour of the late prince and princess, her parents. But this did not make the young princess’s attitude any less irritating and ridiculous. ‘There is still time to change your mind,’ said her aunt one day. ‘A change of scene—a journey through the mountains, for example, is often very beneficial to people who have some trouble on their minds. I am sure you think that life in the provinces is very uncomfortable and disagreeable, but I can assure you that while you are with us you will never have to stay anywhere quite so higgledy-piggledy….’ The wretched old women who still dragged on their existence in the palace eagerly watched the princess’s face while their fate was being decided. Surely she would not throw away this opportunity of escape! To their consternation they soon saw that her aunt’s appeal was not making the slightest impression upon her. Jijū, for her part, had recently become engaged to a young cousin of