power of faith. It was not the sole, but the self that trod there, stripped of social covering. In the heat of the moment the walkers forgot their fellow-men and walked alone with their god. Characters came out vividly in the process, like hidden writing before the fire. Each contrasted oddly with its neighbors, often treading close on its opposite's heels, jostling emotion itself by the juxtaposition. Now a sturdy jinrikisha man, persuaded that the crossing would bring him fares, went over as a matter of business, and in his wake a small boy, unable to resist so divine a variety of tittle-ties on thin ice, followed for doubtless a very different reason. Then a family in due order of etiquette ventured successfully along in a line. Now a dear old grandam, bent by years to a question mark of life, hobbled bravely across notwithstanding; and now a fair little girl, straight and slim as an admiration point, performed the feat vicariously, but I doubt not as effectively, in the arms of one of the priests. A touch of the fine in all this that tended to film the eyes, and lend the scene a glamour which, if not strictly religious, was its very close of kin.
