finely made as if for actual use; all the necessary toilet apparatus,—combs, mirrors, utensils for blackening the teeth, for shaving the eyebrows, for reddening the lips and whitening the face,—all these things are there to delight the souls of all the little girls who may have the opportunity to behold them. For three days the imperial effigies are served sumptuously at each meal, and the little girls of the family take pleasure in serving their imperial majesties; but when the feast ends, the dolls and their belongings are packed away in their boxes, and lodged in the fire-proof warehouse for another year.

The Tokugawa collection, of which I have spoken, is remarkably full and costly, for it has been making for hundreds of years in one of the younger branches of a family which for two and a half centuries was possessed of almost imperial power, and lived in more than imperial luxury; but there are few households so poor that they do not from year to year accumulate a little store of toys wherewith to celebrate the feast, and, whether the toys are many or few, the feast is the event of the year in the lives of the little girls of Japan.[*]

Beside the regular feasts at stated seasons, our little girl has a great variety of toys and games, some belonging to particular seasons, some played at any time during the year. At the New Year the popular out-of-door games are battledoor and shuttlecock, and ball. There is no prettier sight, to my mind, than a group of little girls in their many-colored wide-sleeved dresses playing with battledoor or ball. The graceful, rhythmic motion of their bodies, the bright upturned eyes, the laughing faces, are set off to perfection by the coloring of their flowing drapery; and their agility on their high, lacquered clogs is a constant source of wonder and admiration to any one who has ever made an effort to walk upon the clumsy things. There are dolls, too, that are not relegated to the storehouse when the Feast of Dolls is ended, but who are the joy and comfort of their little mothers during the whole year; and at every kwan-ko-ba, or bazaar, an endless variety of games, puzzles, pictures to be cut out and glued together, and amusements of all kinds, may be purchased at extremely low rates. There is no dearth of games for our little girl, and many pleasant hours are spent in the household sitting room with games, or conundrums, or stories, or the simple girlish chatter that elicits constant laughter from sheer youthful merriment.

As for fairy tales, so dear to the hearts of children in every country, the Japanese child has her full share. Often she listens, half asleep, while cuddling under the warm quilted cover of the kotatsu,[6] in the cold winter evenings, to the drowsy voice of the old grandmother or nurse, who carries her away on the wings of imagination to the wonderful palace of the sea gods, or to the haunts of the terrible oni, monsters with red, distorted faces and fearful horns. Momotaro, the Peach Boy, with his wonderful feats in the conquest of the oni, is her hero, until he is supplanted by the more real ones of Japanese history.

There are occasional all-day visits to the theatre, too, where, seated on the floor in a box, railed off from those adjoining, our little girl, in company with her mother and sisters, enjoys, though with paroxysms of horror and fear, the heroic historical plays which are now almost all that is left of the heroic old Japan. Here she catches the spirit of passionate loyalty that belonged to those days, forms her ideals of what a noble Japanese woman should be willing to do for parents or husband, and comes away taught, as she could be by no other teaching, what the spirit was that animated her ancestors,—what spirit must animate her, should she wish to be a worthy descendant of the women of old.

Among these surroundings, with these duties and amusements, our little girl grows to womanhood. The unconscious and beautiful spirit of her childhood is not driven away at the dawn of womanhood by thoughts of beaux, of coming out in society, of a brief career of flirtation and conquest, and at the end as fine a marriage, either for love or money, as her imagination can picture. She takes no thought for these things herself, and her intercourse with young men, though free and unconstrained, has about it no grain of flirtation or romantic interest. When the time comes for her to marry, her father will have her meet some eligible young man, and both she and the young man will know, when they are brought together, what is the end in view, and will make up their minds about the matter. But until that time comes, the modest Japanese maiden carries on no flirtations, thinks little of men except as higher beings to be deferred to and waited on, and preserves the childlike innocence of manner, combined with a serene dignity under all circumstances, that is so noticeable a trait in the Japanese woman from childhood to old age.

The Japanese woman is, under this discipline, a finished product at the age of sixteen or eighteen. She is pure, sweet, and amiable, with great power of self-control, and a knowledge of what to do upon all occasions. The higher part of her nature is little developed; no great religious truths have lifted her soul above the world into a clearer and higher atmosphere; but as far as she goes, in regard to all the little things of daily life, she is bright, industrious, sweet-tempered, and attractive, and prepared to do well her duty, when that duty comes to her, as wife and mother and mistress of a household. The highest principle upon which she is taught to act is obedience, even to the point of violating all her finest feminine instincts, at the command of father or husband; and acting under that principle, she is capable of an entire self-abnegation such as few women of any race can achieve.

With the close of her childhood, the happiest period in the life of a Japanese woman closes. The discipline that she has received so far, repressive and constant as it has often been, has been from kind and loving parents. She has freedom, to a certain degree, such as is unknown to any other country in Asia. In the home she is truly loved, often the pet and plaything of the household, though not receiving the caresses and words of endearment that children in America expect as a right, for love in Japan is undemonstrative.[7] But just at the time when her mind broadens, and the desire for knowledge and self-improvement develops, the restraints and checks upon her become more severe. Her sphere seems to grow narrower, difficulties one by one increase, and the young girl, who sees life before her as something broad and expansive, who looks to the future with expectant joy, may become, in a few years, the weary, disheartened woman.