At last her husband handed the wife a small white box. "Tell me what you see inside," he said. She opened it and took out something round and bright.
On one side were buds and flowers of frosted silver. The other side at first looked as clear and bright as a pool of water. When she moved it a little she saw in it a most beautiful woman.
"Oh, what a beautiful picture!" she cried. "It is of a woman and she seems to be smiling and talking just as I am. She has on a blue dress just like mine, too! How strange!"
Then her husband laughed and said: "That is a mirror. It is yourself you see reflected in it. All the women in Tokio have them."
The wife was delighted with her present, and looked at it very often. She liked to see the smiling red lips, the laughing eyes, and beautiful dark hair.
After a while she said to herself: "How foolish this is of me to sit and gaze at myself in this mirror! I am not more beautiful than other women. How much better for me to enjoy others' beauty, and forget my own face. I shall only remember that it must always be happy and smiling or it will make no one else happy. I do not wish any cross or angry look of mine to make any one sad."
She put the mirror carefully away in its box. Only twice in a year she looked at it. Then it was to see if her face was still such as would make others happy.
The years passed by in their sweet and simple life until the baby had grown to be a big girl. Her _ninghio_, her _tombo_, the image of Uzume, even the cotton monkey, were put carefully away for her own children.
This girl was the very image of her mother. She was just as sweet and loving, just as kind and helpful.
One day her mother became very ill. Although the girl and her father did all they could for her, she grew worse and worse.
At last she knew that she must die, so she called her daughter to her and said: "My child, I know that I must soon leave you, but I wish to leave something with you in my place. Open this box and see what you find in it."
The girl opened the box and looked for the first time in a mirror. "Oh, mother dear!" she cried. "I see you here. Not thin and pale as you are now, but happy and smiling, as you have always been."
Then her mother said: "When I am gone, will you look in this every morning and every night? If anything troubles you, tell me about it. Always try to do right, so that you will see only happiness here."