alone, he had soon followed her, intending to tell her he is her long-lost brother!  Then he explains how, after being banished from home, he entered the service of a learned man, with whom he began to study, and that, perceiving at last the wickedness of his ways, he made up his mind to reform.  But, although he immediately hastened home to beg his parents’ forgiveness, he arrived there only to find his native town in ruins.  Unable to secure any information in regard to his kin, he then became a recluse, and it was only because shame and emotion prevented his speaking that he had not immediately told White Aster who he was.

  Much then my spirit fought against itself,
  Wishing to tell my name and welcome you,
  My long-lost sister:  but false shame forbade
  And kept my mouth tight closed.

His tale ended, the recluse and his small sister leave the robbers’ den, and steal hand in hand through the dusk, the forest’s silence being broken only by the shrill cries of bands of monkeys.  They are just about to emerge from this dark ravine, when the robber who managed to escape suddenly pounces upon the priest, determined to slay him so as to avenge his dead comrades.  Another terrible fight ensues, which so frightens poor little White Aster that she runs off, losing her way in the darkness, and is not able to return to her brother’s side in spite of all her efforts.

The third canto tells how, after wandering around all night, White Aster finally emerges at dawn on the top of a cliff, at whose base nestles a tiny village, with one of the wonted shrines.  Making her way down to this place, White Aster kneels in prayer, but her attitude is so weary that an old peasant, passing by, takes pity upon her and invites her to join his daughter in their little cottage.  White Aster thus becomes an inmate of this rustic home, where she spends the next few years, her beauty increasing every day, until her fame spreads all over the land.  Hearing of her unparalleled loveliness, the governor finally decides to marry her, although she is far beneath him in rank, and sends a matrimonial agent to bargain for her hand.  The old rustic, awed by the prospect of so brilliant an alliance, consents without consulting White Aster, and he and the agent pick out in the calendar a propitious day for the wedding.

When the agent has departed, the old man informs his guest how he has promised her hand in marriage, adding that she has no choice and must consent.  But White Aster exclaims that her mother, on her way to the temple one day, heard a strange sound in the churchyard.  There she discovered, amongst the flowers, a tiny abandoned girl, whom she adopted, giving her the name of the blossoms around her.

                   “Once,” she said,
  “Ere morn had scarce begun to dawn, I went
  To worship at the temple:  as I passed
  Through the churchyard ’twixt rows of gravestones hoar,
  And blooming white chrysanthemums, I heard