little bamboo mat.
(And I hope she carried a doll or two, but I can't be sure of that!)
She watched the fountain toss,
And she gazed the bridge across,
And she worked a bit of embroidery fine with a thread of silken
floss.

[Illustration: LOO-LEE LOO AND LITTLE FING-WEE]

She touched her wee guitar,
The gift of her prince-papa,
And she hummed a queer little Chinese tune with a Chinese tra-la-la!
It was all that she had to do
To keep her from feeling blue,
For terribly lonely and dull sometimes was poor little Loo-lee Loo.

Her father had kites to fly
Far up in the free blue sky
(For a Chinaman loves with this elegant sport his leisure to occupy);
And what with his drums and gongs,
And his numerous loud ding-dongs,
He could have any day, in a princely way, a regular Fourth of July.

Her mother, the fair Su-See,
Was as busy as she could be,
Though she never went out, except, perhaps, to a neighboring
afternoon tea;
She was young herself, as yet,
And the minutes that she could get
She spent in studying up the rules of Elegant Etiquette.

So the princess nibbled her plums,
And twirled her dear little thumbs,
And lent sometimes a wistful ear to the beating of distant drums;
Until one April day--
_Tsing Ming_, as they would say--
She saw at the gate a sight that straight took Loo-lee's breath away.

[Illustration: SU-SEE]

Two dimples, soft and meek,
In a brown little baby cheek,
Two dear little eyes that met her own in a ravishing glance oblique;
A chubby hand thrust through
The palings of bamboo--
A little Celestial, dropped, it seemed, straight out of the
shining blue.

A playmate, a friend, a toy,
A live little baby boy--
Conceive, if you can, in her lonely state, the Princess
Loo-lee's joy!
How, as fast as her feet could toddle
(Her shoes were a Chinese model),
She hurried him in, and almost turned his dear little
wondering noddle.

"Oh, is it," she bent to say
In her courteous Chinese way,
"In my very contemptible garden, dear, your illustrious wish
to play?"
And when he nodded his head
She k