duties—to the left within is the Oku-no-In, the inner shrine containing the ihai or memorial tablet of O'Iwa. That the shrine is popular and wealthy; that the lady is feared, venerated, and her dreadful powers much sought after; this is plain to the eye in the crowded elaborateness of this inner holy place of the larger sacred structure.

Now Echizenbori is not a particularly old quarter of the city. Long after Edo was established, the city, step by step, fought its way down to the river; filling in lagoons and swamps, and driving their waters into the canals which were to furnish very largely the means of communication for its traffic. Yotsuya on the contrary is old. Its poverty is of later date. In the Edo days it was a favourite site for the homes of dōshin, yakunin, and a whole herd of the minor officials who had the actual working of the great Tokugawa machine of government in their hands. In the maps of Ansei 4th year (1857) the shrine of the O'Iwa Inari figures in Samonchō, in its Teramachi; a small part of the great mass of red, indicating temples and shrines and their lands, which then covered a large part of Yotsuya. How then did it come to pass that the shrine was removed to this far off site in Echizenbori, with such incongruous surroundings? The explanation must be found in our story.

When the Tenwa year period (1681-83) opened, long resident at Yotsuya Samonchō had been Tamiya Matazaémon. By status he was a minor official or dōshin under the Tokugawa administration. These dōshin held highest rank of the permanent staff under the bureaucratic establishment; and on these men lay the main dependence for smoothness of working of the machinery of the Government. Matazaémon was the perfect type of the under-official of the day; smooth, civilly impertinent to his equals, harsh to his inferiors, and all unction and abjectness to his superiors. Indeed, he laid more stress on those immediately above him than on the more removed. To serve the greater lord he served his immediate officer, being careful to allow to the latter all the credit. No small part of his function was to see that ceremonial form and precedent were carried out to the letter. It was the accurate and ready knowledge of these which was of greatest import to his chief, indeed might save the latter from disaster. Matazaémon's readiness and conduct rendered him deservedly valued. Hence he enjoyed the double salary of thirty tawara of rice, largely supplemented by gifts coming to him as teacher in hanaiké (the art of flower arrangement) and of the cha-no-yu (tea ceremony). He had a more than good house, for one of his class, facing on the wide Samonchō road, and with a garden on the famous Teramachi or long street lined with temples and which runs eastward from that thoroughfare. The garden of Tamiya almost faced the entrance to the Gwanshōji, which is one of the few relics of the time still extant. It was large enough to contain some fifteen or twenty fruit trees, mainly the kaki or persimmon, for Matazaémon was of practical mind. Several cherry trees, however, periodically displayed their bloom against the rich dark green foliage of the fruit trees; and in one corner, to set forth the mystic qualities of a small Inari shrine relic of a former owner, were five or six extremely ancient, gnarled, and propped up plum trees, sufficient in number to cast their delicate perfume through garden and house in the second month (March).

Such was the home of Matazaémon; later that of O'Iwa San. It was pretentious enough to make display with a large household. But the master of Tamiya was as close-fisted and hard and bitter as an unripe biwa (medlar). His wealth was the large and unprofitable stone which lay within; the acid pulp, a shallow layer, all he had to give to society in his narrow minded adherence to official routine; the smooth, easily peeled skin the outward sign of his pretentions to social status and easily aroused acidity of temper. With most of his neighbours, and all his relatives, he had a standing quarrel. Secure in his lord's favour as an earnest officer, so little did he care for the dislike of the ward residents that he was ever at drawn swords with the head of his ward-association, Itō Kwaiba. As for the relatives, they were only too ready to come to closer intimacy; and Matazaémon knew it.

His household consisted of his wife O'Naka, his daughter O'Mino, and the man servant Densuké. The garden Matazaémon would allow no one to attend to but himself. The two women did all the work of the household which ordinarily would fall to woman-kind, with something more. Densuké performed the heavier tasks, accompanied his master on his outings, and represented his contribution to the service of the ward barrier, the Ōkidō, on the great Kōshū-Kaidō and just beyond the Ōbangumi. The barrier cut off Yotsuya from the Naitō-Shinjuku district, and, as an entrance into Edo, was of considerable importance. When the time of service came Densuké appeared in full uniform and with his pike. A handsome young fellow of nineteen years, the women, especially O'Mino, saw to it that his appearance should be a credit to the House. His progress up the wide Samonchō, up to his disappearance into the great highway, was watched by O'Mino—and by the neighbours, who had much sharper eyes and tongues than Matazaémon and his wife. They marvelled.

With ground for marvel. In the eyes of her parents O'Mino was the most beautiful creature ever created. Occasionally Matazaémon would venture on criticism. "Naka, something is to be said to Mino. Too much powder is used on the face. Unless the colour of the skin be very dark, the use of too much powder is not good. Mino is to be warned against excess." Thus spoke the official in his most official tone and manner. Wife and daughter heard and disobeyed; the wife because she was ruled by her daughter, and the daughter because she would emulate the fair skin of Densuké and be fairer in his eyes. O'Mino had suffered both from fate and fortune. She had been born ugly; with broad, flat face like unto the moon at full, or a dish. Her back was a little humped, her arms disproportionately long, losing in plumpness what they gained in extension. She seemed to have no breasts at all, the chest forming a concavity in correspondence to the convexity of the back, with a smoothness much like the inner surface of a bowl. This perhaps was no disadvantage—under the conditions. So much for fate. But fortune had been no kinder. "Blooming" into girlhood, she had been attacked by smallpox. Matazaémon was busy, and knew nothing of sick nursing. O'Naka was equally ignorant, though she was well intentioned. Of course the then serving wench knew no more than her mistress. O'Mino was allowed to claw her countenance and body, as the itching of the sores drove her nearly frantic. In fact, O'Naka in her charity aided her. The result was that she was most hideously pock-marked. Furthermore, the disease cost her an eye, leaving a cavity, a gaping and unsightly wound, comparable to the dumplings called kuzumanju, white puffy masses of rice dough with a depression in the centre marked by a dab of the dark-brown bean paste. The neighbours used to say that O'Mino was nin san baké shichi—that is, three parts human and seven parts apparition. The more critical reduced her humanity to the factor one. The children had no name for her but "Oni" (fiend). They had reason for this. They would not play with her, and treated her most cruelly. O'Mino, who was of no mild temperament, soon learned to retaliate by use of an unusually robust frame, to which was united by nature and circumstances her father's acidity of character. When the odds were not too great all the tears were not on O'Mino's side; but she suffered greatly, and learned with years that the Tamiya garden