Explore "The Shogun's Daughter" by Robert Ames Bennet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Cleansed and refreshed, we returned to compose ourselves upon our mats in the guest-room, while Kohana San, once more resplendent in gala dress, hastened out for our dinner. We were not long kept waiting. She returned with a lacquered tray, or rather, a low table, twelve or fourteen inches high. This she placed before me, and was out and back again in a few minutes with a similar tray for Yoritomo.
Each tray held many little bowls of steaming hot food and a pair of plain chopsticks, cut from a single piece of wood and not yet split apart at the upper end. At first I hesitated to begin eating under the eyes of this most cultured of _geishas_, but my single biscuit and the handful of persimmons had served only to whet my appetite, and the savory odors of many of the dishes before me were very tempting.