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strangely like Roman Catholic churchfittings. We should say at once the Japs must have borrowed their ritual from Rome, as they did their writing characters from China, only this ritual is the same in China, and more or less wherever Buddhism prevails. Xavier and his missionaries, too, found it in use, and wondered that the devil had been permitted so closely to ape the ceremonies of Holy Church.

What has thrown the Jap priests off their balance is that Buddhism has been officially disestablished. It was the Tycoons' religion; all their patronage of sacred art was in connection with it. That was reason enough for the Mikado's counsellors to discountenance it. And, moreover, Shintoism is cheap; Buddhism, with its gorgeous ritual, its lamps, and incense, and burning of gilt-paper, its choirs and processions, is expensive; and Japan is very poor. "The Powers" forced it to make a cruelly one-sided treaty in 1858, and it is not likely to get rich till this is modified. Anyhow, Buddhism is looked on so coldly in high places, that even the wood-carvings (the finest in the world) at Nikko and elsewhere, are being allowed to moulder away, because they were wrought under "the upstart dynasty." Yet there is no persecution. Buddhism is not abolished, and you see the people swarming to the festivals, buying charms, and using prayer-wheels, just as in the old time. It is a corrupt Buddhism (Taouism, is the name it has in China), in which saints, turned into secondary gods, get a good deal of the worship due to Buddha alone. There is a God of Happiness, at whose feast you will see hundreds of fullgrown men buying a thing like a toyship's mast, with flowers and streamers from the yardarms. They will hang that up in the place of honour at home, and will think it is going to bring them good luck during the year. It does not seem very reverent to spit pellets of chewed paper at your god; but the Jap does not mean any harm by it. If the paper sticks, he thinks he is in for something good, and from the part of the god's body that it adheres to, he argues what sort of good he is likely to have. It shows faith, too, to hang your sandals in front of "the two Heavenly Kings," hoping thereby to become a famous walker without the time and trouble of training. Do not think that the Japs only go to these festivals because they are a pack of grown children, and would go anywhere to see a few flags and

a procession. They are children, and no nation in the world spends so much in toys as they do. But in their worship there is plenty of desperate earnestness. You see a man, not only pulling the gong-string, but clapping his hands as well as wringing them; and close by, wrapt up in her own wants, a girl with gestures of the most piteous entreaty. Next you meet a woman who has come over a hundred miles to hang a lock of her hair on "the Gate of Heaven"; and who, having done it, is walking away with folded palms, and that look of rapt contentment on her face which only the best painters succeed in giving to martyrs. Shrines crop out in the most unlikely places. You are at a tea house on a hill, taking tea and cakes, and talking to the neat-handed Phyllises, whose simple, artless ways are such a happy contrast to the airs and graces of the young ladies of the English bar. You look out and see a halfnaked pilgrim resolutely climbing up the steepest side. He is not a beggar who has scented out the presence of strangers; for, a few minutes after, he is worshipping with frenzied zeal at a little altar that you had not noticed before, and when he has done he leaves a few "rin"-ten to the halfpennyin front of the image. Maybe he is praying for a sick wife or child; perhaps he wants to be rid of the burden of sin, which comes of evil done in a previous state. I should stick to Buddhism if I were a Jap. It is fairly old, and it keeps its ritual. How can anyone, except a Government official, take pleasure in the official faith, whose high priest, in a blue frock-coat and white trousers, heads a procession of girls, dressed in plain white, differing from Sundayschool girls only in wearing wreaths of flowers? That is how the going back to Shintoism is carried out; and that surely cannot satisfy the aesthetic needs of the most art-loving people in the world.

At Nikko, the old Tycoons' buryingplace, you see Japanese Buddhism at its noblest. Iyeyasu, the first Tycoon, was buried there some two hundred and fifty years ago, and since then the temple, which dates from the eighth century, has been beautified by each successive "temporal emperor." Its carvings are wonderful, and so are its avenues of Buddhas, and its weird figures of griffins and other fabulous beasts, and its solemn tombs, and its torii

the Jap trilithon, usually of wood, but here of granite twenty-seven feet high and seventeen wide, making us marvel how such a weighty impost could have been

set in its place.
about Nikko is its scenery. "Never
say kekko (beautiful) till you have seen
Nikko," is a proverb; and certainly the
wood, and rock, and lake, and waterfall,
and patches of greensward, must be a
sight, especially when the cherry-blossom
is out and the hillsides aflame with azaleas.
The lanterns carved in stone are as curiously
beautiful as anything. Curious, but not
beautiful, is a big brass lamp, which was
one of the Dutch presents. It was evidently
once inside a Christian church; the
reformers turned it out as "Popish," and
Mynheer thought it would save his purse
and be just as much in place with Buddha
and the Two Heavenly Kings as it was
before the altar of Our Lady. Many of the
temples are being turned into schools;
they will be the roomiest and best ventilated
in the world, and one hopes the teaching
will be up to the level of the place where
it is given. At present there is a sad
tendency to be superficial. You see Herbert
Spencer on the one table which (with four
chairs) makes the furniture of those who
go in for English ways; but ten to one not
half the pages are cut.

But the great thing samurai (many of whom, poor fellows, had to come down to jin-rikisha driving when the old régime was suddenly broken up), you must go to the theatre. There, like an Athenian of old, the Jap sits all day long, and sees and hears the interminable story of wrong and revenge, and glory and suffering. It is like the Greek stage, too, in having a "chorus" to interpret the pantomime to which sometimes through a whole scene the actors confine themselves. You watch the "first villain's" hideous grimaces and grim contortions, and the writhings of the fair one, who, unless rescue comes, will be his victim, and "chorus,' to the soft sound of the samiken (lute), tells you what is going on in both their minds. True, the Japanese chorus does not pace solemnly round the stage-altar as the Greek chorus did; it remains boxed up behind thick bamboo lattice-work; but the scene-shifting is quite Greek. Instead of all our worry with carpenters, a man who sits in the pit just turns a pivot when a change of scene is wanted. Greek, too, is the sex of the players. Woman, unhappily (as distinguished from lady), is not of much account in Japan; yet women never act. An enterprising company has lately brought on a ballet, more like an Indian nautch in its slow movements and sweeping trains than what we mean by the word; the public applaud rapturously, under the impression that they are seeing what hitherto no one but the naughty lords of the black ships have been privileged to look at.

I wish there was not a still sadder tendency to wear English clothes. They never seem made for the wearer. I do not know how it is; a Japanese gentleman goes to a first-rate tailor, and yet his things always look as if he had picked them up secondhand. They fit, but with a difference. I suppose it is the way of wearing them. I much prefer the brawny boatman in his suit of tattoo and linen breeches, with a If the European dress does not suit the cloak of straw-thatch on a wet day, Japs, surely some of our institutions that makes him look like a little Welsh suit them even less. One reads with hayrick out for a jaunt, or the merry horror that Japan supports two hunjin-rikisha man, who, outside the cities, dred and twenty-five newspapers, and wears as little as possible, to a Tokio that the next move is to be the doing "masher " in full dress, claw-hammer coat, away with what is left of Buddhism, and white kid gloves, and a pair of pattens; setting up a House of Lords. The or to the walking compromise, who, Euro- Chinese are imitative, but in a conservative peanised above, has his nether limbs half way; the Japs, if they don't take care, will concealed by a shirt and nothing more. find this giving up their own originality It is well that the ladies have not taken to disastrous. It has already proved so in "improvers and swan-bill corsets. Their art. Even the trays at the Mikado's lunch are own dress is a deception. Mr. Faulds, no longer ornamented in the beautiful native who, as a doctor, has a right to know, says style which gave a new fillip to Western that the many silken bodices which they artists, but are actually in Brummagem display-colour above colour, just half an style. You stop at a tea-house far out in the inch of each appearing beyond the one country, and expect, not only native fare, below it—are not real. An inch of coloured-including octopus soup-but native ware. silk is stitched on the edge of the bodice, another so as just to overlap that, and so To see what a noble looked like in his exaggerated crinoline, or a two-sworded

on.

You get the former; but, instead of the little lacquer trays, they give you coarse earthenware and hideous enamelled iron plates-German or English-and they

actually think they are honouring you by making the change. Japanese art, however, will take a good deal of spoiling. The people who can make a room look furnished with one flower in a pot and a pair of vases, and with whom flower-wreathmaking is as regularly taught as needlework, and whose toffee-sellers will model at a moment's notice any group, animal or human, that the little boy who is buying his halfpennyworth may fix upon, are born artists. One hopes that the Japanese art-instinct will be strong enough to live down this inroad of cheap and ugly things from abroad, even though some branches are of necessity given up-the swords, for instance, the forging of which used to be a religious ceremony, for which the smith attired himself in a peculiar garb.

Few people are so merry, so contented, and so industrious. In the inland parts Mr. Coote (see his pleasant Wanderings South and East) now and then found it hard to get coolies. Once he offered a week's wages to have his goods carried one stage; but his "boy" told him "they no wantchee come; no wantchee pay; wantchee plant that paddy-rice." They are over-taxed; our treaty-rules are very harsh, but the crushing taxation is not due to them alone. The Government has been acting as the Khedives did, wasting money on any folly that a speculator might recommend, and neglecting needful things. The Tokaidogrand high-road between Tokio and Kioto is in a shameful state; thousands of the glorious cryptomerias (Japanese cedars) which used to line it have been cut down Some of the changes are good. Cremation and sold, but not a penny has been spent -said to be popular because it is cheap-on putting the road in order. we may mark as doubtful; and vegetarians will cry out against the increasing love of flesh-meat, which-as joints cannot be cooked in the tiny house-stoves-is provided in cook-shops. Certainly the light houses are a boon around that mist-wrapped, typhoon-swept coast; and so is the humaner criminal code. Till the other day, torture was a thing of course among a people who yet will buy a caged bird in order to "perform the good work" of letting it free. Good is the rose furore, if it does not run to such extremes as the Dutch tulip mania. Before roses, rabbits were the rage, and the result was not always good. A man lost a pair of the most fashionable breed, and actually sold his daughter to replace them. The second pair died soon after, and then he committed Seppuku, vulgarly called Harikari, the proper form of suicide for one who has disgraced himself or brought discredit on his clan. Good is the steamer-building. The Japanese, says Sir Rutherford Alcock, built a steamer, without ever having seen one, wholly from the plans in a Dutch book, and much better it was than the rotten old things which English and Americans have too often persuaded them to buy. Distinctly bad is such women's work as the coal-shipping at Nagasaki. Good again is the change in underclothing-the use of woollen jerseys, and comforters, and blankets; aye, and beef-tea, and milk, and cod-liver oil, in a country where chest complaints are common. Infanticide is being stamped out, and so is smallpox; cholera is manageable, though it will never disappear till the open drains are done away with.

I was counting up the good and evil of this sudden change. Under which head will you class paraffin? It is accountable for a good many fires, though not for more than is the national brazier, which, put under the coverlet, is a dangerous bedfellow. gets kicked over during sleep; the bedding takes fire; the bamboo housepoles, and the light shutters running in grooves that serve as walls, burn like matchwood; there is soon a great blaze; the statue of the fire-god is brought out, but has to be moved farther off; his godship will not stop the flames. And next morning the newspapers publish a map, with a broad patch of red, showing the extent of the conflagration. One would not like to lose the Japanese house, with its delightful surprises-what was a room suddenly becoming part of the street, and vice versâ; but they will have to be modified before they will do for any sensible kind of stoves. In winter they are wretched; the whole nation gets frostbitten; for, though they have their Gulf Stream, and so are spared the bitter cold of Shanghai, and though the volcanic soil (good for everything except sheep) counts for something in keeping up the heat, there is a great deal of cold weather, and singularly ineffectual ways of meeting it. The problem is how to get better warming appliances, and yet to keep clean. Dirt creeps in wherever window-glass and paraffin-lamps have got into use. boots, too, have their advantages over the straw sandals which are taken off on entering a house, but the floors will be a good deal muddier when lace-ups and balmorals are

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the ordinary wear. Anyhow, I hope that the Japanese dogs will still be free from hydrophobia (something very like it is said to come from the bite of white mice, much kept as pets by young Japs); and that some Japanese Sir John Lubbock will pass a Bill for preserving the national monuments. One would not, for instance, like that Daibutz-colossal Buddha, fortyfour feet high and eighty-seven in girth, made of copper- plates, like the huge Liberty given by a Frenchman to the New Yorkers-to come to grief. The face, they say, is a marvel of serenity, and not Japanese but old Egyptian in type.* If I had space we would talk of the Japanese racial affinities; and the Ainos, those mean whites," who were in the land at first, and were driven over to Yesso; and the tailless-cats; and the children's mudgardens, toy-trees to beautify which are a regular trade;" and the jin-rikishas, which a lithe little Jap, all smiles and bone and muscle, wheels along from twenty-five to fifty miles a day, and has been known to take his "guest" seventy miles in the twelve hours; and the strip-sails of the junks, so convenient for taking in a reef or two; and the iris, planted on the thatch as houseleek is with us; and the Mikados who, springing from the gods, can trace an unbroken line to 660 B.C. I should really like to argue how the daimios came so readily to surrender their fiefs in exchange for small incomes in Government bonds. No other landholders in this world have ever been so complaisant. But I must end; and I end with one good trait of a people whom a recent visitor ungraciously describes as "suspicious, and unwilling to expand." They have very few paupers, just because the family-bond is still so strong. A Japanese labourer would think it a disgrace to send his grandfather or his wife's grandmother to the workhouse.

WHICH OF THEM?

"

A STORY IN SIX CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.

"THE question is, my dear madam," said Mr. Picton very solemnly, " to which of the Messrs. Marston are you married?" Lucy Marston sat bolt upright on her sofa, dropped her wet pocket-handkerchief, and opened her blue eyes as wide as the swollen state of their lids would permit.

Near this colossal bronze a priest is always watching for tourists. "Come," says he, "and I will show you a better Buddha." They go, and find a little image presiding over a table, on which is displayed a plentiful supply of bottled Bass.

"To which of them?" she exclaimed. "What a question!"

"Unfortunately, it is a necessary one," pursued the lawyer, "or I should not have troubled you at such a time. Mr. Alan Marston from Kensington, says that he was married to you the night before last, by your late uncle's bedside, and shortly before his lamented death."

"Does he, indeed?" remarked young Mrs. Marston, with a half smile, fingering her new ring, after the fashion of brides.

"Mr. Alan Marston from Brixton, says that he was selected by your uncle to be your husband, and that he received your hand from him."

"And what does Mr. Alan Marston from Yorkshire say ?"

A gleam of demure fun shot across the tear-stains (tears for an uncle do not always leave deep furrows), but she waited with suppressed eagerness for the answer.

"He has not appeared to put forward any claim. He has not yet called at the house." "That is strange!" said Lucy uneasily. "Rather; but no doubt we shall soon see him. I apprised him of the decease of your and his uncle, by a note sent to Mr. Marston of Kensington's chambers, where, as you are aware, he has been staying since he came to London; but I learn that he went out early on Tuesday evening, and had not returned up to halfpast ten this morning."

"Very strange!"repeated Lucy anxiously. "What can have happened to him?"

"A whim, probably-a walking expedition, or a couple of days' shooting," replied Mr. Picton, eyeing her sharply. "At any rate, there is scarcely likely to be a third claimant for your hand. The matter is quite sufficiently complicated already; but, of course, you can set it right with a word. So you must permit me to recall you to the original question. Which of the Messrs. Marston did you marry on Tuesday night?"

"It is quite impossible that it could have been-"Lucy was beginning eagerly, but Mr. Picton recalled her to the question.

"My dear young lady, never mind what was possible or impossible; keep to the fact. Which of them can you swear to be wedded husband?" "Swear!" echoed Lucy, aghast.

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Yes, swear, of your own certain knowledge. Whom did you marry?"

"I-I don't know !" faltered the bride. "You don't know! Mrs. Marston, compose yourself. Think; you must know. It is no matter for childishness."

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"And—and they were not the same person."

"Not an infrequent occurrence, but adding to the present complication."

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"But if you ask me who actually was there-the room was so dark, and poor uncle was moaning so, and I was so frightened, and I nearly fainted as soon as it was over; and if you told me I had been married to you, I couldn't contradict you. Oh, what is to become of me? I am rightly punished!" And she broke into a fit of sobbing.

Mr. Picton sat rubbing his chin until she was quiet again. He was nearly as well used to women's tears as a doctor, and as little liable to be discomposed by them; but he was a kind-hearted man, and extremely sorry for the girl round whom such an extraordinary tangle had woven itself. Still, he enjoyed the foretaste of the pleasure he proposed to himself in disentangling the complication, and unmasking at least one pretender.

"It is an awkward matter, at any rate," he said, "and it is rendered additionally serious by the nature of your uncle's will. Are you acquainted with it?"

"No," murmured Lucy.

"Following his directions, I opened it this morning, in order to communicate to his family his wishes respecting his funeral, and I read it in the presence of his two nephews. The gist of it is-that he leaves his entire property to you and your husband, Alan Marston, with provisions in case of issue or separation with which I need not now trouble you. The christianname and surname of all the three cousins being the same, your marriage forms the only means of identifying your joint-heir. Mr. Alan Marston from Yorkshire has been absent during the critical period; each of the other two of that name claims to be your bridegroom, and you cannot decide between them. That is the situation. That you are married there can be no doubt. But to whom?"

"But," gasped Lucy, turning exceedingly pale, "if if there should be any mistake, if it should be the wrong one, surely I can't be married when I never meant to?" "Something may be done, no doubt, if we can prove fraud. There is fraud somewhere, it is evident, and the will affords

ample inducement. But the first question is whether the wrong man substituted himself for the right one, and is now legally your husband; or whether he is merely making a false claim, relying on the confusedness of the circumstances. It is a most unfortunate thing that I was out of town when your uncle sent for me to witness the marriage."

"But you will help me now?" cried Lucy, stretching out her hands. "You won't desert me? I don't understand anythingit is all so horrible and I am all alone! Oh, what can I do? Oh, help me; don't

let them come near me !"

"I will stand by you, my dear, never fear," said the old lawyer, taking one of her hands. "I'll take care of you, and never give you up except to the right man; and that is more than your poor uncle could make sure of, with all his precautions. Only you must give me your full confidence, and tell me everything that happened. The smallest circumstance may give us a clue."

"Oh, I will-I will; I will tell you everything. I dare say you will blame me, but oh, I did not know what to do."

And Lucy plunged into a somewhat confused narrative, full of explanations and back-stitchings, self-accusings, and self-exculpations, after the fashion of most young ladies whose education has not included the accomplishment of making an orderly statement of facts-and, in spite of the prevalence of the higher education, it is to be feared that they are still in the majority. Mr. Picton, however, seemed to extract a meaning from her story, which meaning he embodied in his note-book, and then rose to take leave.

"Do you think it will all come right in the end?" Lucy asked wistfully.

"I have no doubt it will all come right in the end," he replied cheerfully, "and you shall not be forced into anything against your will." But here Mr. Picton's conscience protested against his choking down inconvenient reminiscences of the English matrimonial law, and he was forced to compromise with it. "Only remember, there are more ways than one of things coming right, and don't commit yourself."

"More ways than one?"

"Why, it might-I hope it will not, but it might prove that you were not married to the man of your choice; and then

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"And then " repeated Lucy anxiously. "Then, as your cousins are all amiable and eligible young men [Except one, who is a swindler,' remarked Mr. Picton's

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