Taking his visitor gently by the hand, he leads her into the sanctuary, where he seats her at Buddha’s feet, before inquiring who she is and what she is doing at night in the wilderness.  White Aster timidly explains that, although born in one of the southern islands and cradled in a rich home, the pleasant tenor of her life was suddenly interrupted by the outbreak of war.  Her home sacked and destroyed, she and her mother barely escaped with their lives.  Taking refuge near a ruined temple, they erected a booth to shelter them, where the girl who had always been lapped in luxury had to perform all kinds of menial tasks.  But even under such circumstances her life proved pleasant compared to what she suffered when news came that her father had rebelled against the king, and that he and his adherents had been crushed in the war.  No poppy-draught could enable the two poor women to forget such terrible tidings, and it is no wonder the poor mother pined away.

                      As the stream
  Flows to the sea and nevermore returns,
  So ebbed and ebbed her life.  I cannot tell
  What in those days I suffered.  Nature’s self
  Seemed to be mourning with me, for the breeze
  Of Autumn breathed its last, and as it died
  The vesper-bell from yonder village pealed
  A requiem o’er my mother.  Thus she died,
  But dead yet lives—­for, ever, face and form,
  She stands before my eyes; and in my ears
  I ever seem to hear her loving voice,
  Speaking as in the days when, strict and kind,
  She taught me household lore,—­in all a mother.

Having carefully tended her mother to the end, poor little White Aster lived alone, until one day her father suddenly appeared, having found at last a way to escape and rejoin them.  He was, however, broken-hearted on learning of his wife’s death, and, hoping to comfort him, White Aster paid him all manner of filial attentions.  She could not, however, restore happiness or peace to the bereaved man, who, besides mourning his wife, keenly regretted the absence of his son Akitoshi, whom he had driven from home in anger when the youth proved wild and overbearing.

During this artless narrative the recluse had exhibited signs of deep emotion, and, when White Aster mentioned the name of her brother, he clasped his hands over his face as if to conceal its expression.  After listening to her tale in silence, he kindly bade White Aster tarry there until sunrise, assuring her it would not be safe for her to wander in the mountain by night.  Little White Aster, therefore slept at Buddha’s feet, shivering with cold, for her garments were far too thin to protect her from the keen mountain air.  As she slept she dreamt of her father, whose wraith appeared to her, explaining that a false step had hurled him down into a ravine, whence he has vainly been trying to escape for three days past!

The second canto opens with a description of a beautiful red dawn, and of the gradual awakening of the birds, whose songs finally rouse the little maiden, who again sets off on her quest.