Among the assembled women there were some who, even during the lecture, were continually murmuring ‘Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu …’ After the lecturer had gone, tea and cakes were served to each of them, which they took up reverently as they began to talk amongst themselves not so much of the sermon they had just heard as of the doings of each other’s families. An organization of believers known as the ‘Ladies’ Church’ and consisting mostly of women of the middle class or above, they invariably included a sermon by a visiting lecturer in their regular monthly meeting. Sometimes someone would bring an unmarried daughter or a young woman, but most of them were middle-aged or elderly women of the well-to-do classes; occasionally, even, a celebrated bluestocking, sister to the chief abbot of the temple, was to be seen among them, conspicuous as she sat absolutely upright with her long neck like a crane’s.

Tomo exchanged a few words on everyday subjects with some businessmen’s wives of her acquaintance, took up her familiar hold-all and left the meeting somewhat before the rest of them. She had to call at an agent’s house about raising the land rent on their estate at Kodemmachō.

Devoutly pressing her palms together in front of her breast as she passed before the main hall of the temple, she made her way out of the temple’s spacious grounds and set off in the direction of Shintomichō, her mind dwelling as she went on the religious faith shown by the Lady Vaidehi.

Tomo’s first acquaintance with the teachings of the Shin sect of Buddhism had come about at the wish of her mother, now long since dead.

A few years before her mother’s death at her elder brother’s house in Kumamoto, a dozen or more years previously, Tomo had yielded to her wishes and traveled all the way to Kyushu to see her, taking with her the then still youthful Suga.

She had wanted to calm the fears that her mother felt at hearing that Suga had come to be Yukitomo’s mistress, to calm them by letting her see with her own eyes that this concubine was not a woman to be dreaded but a gentle girl more like a young bride.

Her mother indeed had seemed even more reassured than Tomo had expected, yet nonetheless it seemed to make her appreciate still more keenly the heaviness of Tomo’s heart at the idea of such a young and beautiful woman living under the same roof and serving Yukitomo throughout the long years to come.