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“Father! father! do not say such dreadful things to me. I am still your obedient child. Indeed, I am. However stupid I may be, I should never be able to curse any one who belonged to you, much less pray for the death of one you love. Surely some one has been telling you lies, and you are dazed, and you know not what you say–or some evil spirit has taken possession of YOUR heart. As for me I do not know–no, not so much as a dew-drop, of the evil thing of which you accuse me.”

But the father remembered that she had hidden something away when he first entered the room, and even this earnest protest did not satisfy him. He wished to clear up his doubts once for all.

“Then why are you always alone in your room these days? And tell me what is that that you have hidden in your sleeve–show it to me at once.”

Then the daughter, though shy of confessing how she had cherished her mother’s memory, saw that she must tell her father all in order to clear herself. So she slipped the mirror out from her long sleeve and laid it before him.

“This,” she said, “is what you saw me looking at just now.”

“Why,” he said in great surprise, “this is the mirror that I brought as a gift to your mother when I went up to the capital many years ago! And so you have kept it all this time? Now, why do you spend so much of your time before this mirror?”

Then she told him of her mother’s last words, and of how she had promised to meet her child whenever she looked into the glass. But still the father could not understand the simplicity of his daughter’s character in not knowing that what she saw reflected in the mirror was in reality her own face, and not that of her mother.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I do not understand how you can meet the soul of your lost mother by looking in this mirror?”

“It is indeed true,” said the girl: “and if you don’t believe what I say, look for yourself,” and she placed the mirror before her. There, looking back from the smooth metal disk, was her own sweet face. She pointed to the reflection seriously:

“Do you doubt me still?” she asked earnestly, looking up into his face.

With an exclamation of sudden understanding the father smote his two hands together.

“How stupid I am! At last I understand. Your face is as like your mother’s as the two sides of a melon–thus you have looked at the reflection of your face ail this time, thinking that you were brought face to face with your lost mother! You are truly a faithful child. It seems at first a stupid thing to have done, but it is not really so, It shows how deep has been your filial piety, and how innocent your heart. Living in constant remembrance of your lost mother has helped you to grow like her in character. How clever it was of her to tell you to do this. I admire and respect you, my daughter, and I am ashamed to think that for one instant I believed your suspicious step-mother’s story and suspected you of evil, and came with the intention of scolding you severely, while all this time you have been so true and good. Before you I have no countenance left, and I beg you to forgive me.”

And here the father wept. He thought of how lonely the poor girl must have been, and of all that she must have suffered under her step-mother’s treatment. His daughter steadfastly keeping her faith and simplicity in the midst of such adverse circumstances–bearing all her troubles with so much patience and amiability–made him compare her to the lotus which rears its blossom of dazzling beauty out of the slime and mud of the moats and ponds, fitting emblem of a heart which keeps itself unsullied while passing through the world.