ings.

The brilliant figure and her two attendants moved forward under the
shade of a huge ceremonial umbrella of yellow oiled paper, which
looked like a membrane or like old vellum, and upon which were written
in Chinese characters the personal name of the lady chosen for the
honour and the name of the house in which she was an inmate. The
shaft of this umbrella, some eight or nine feet long, was carried by a
sinister being, clothed in the blue livery of the Japanese artisan,
a kind of tabard with close-fitting trousers. He kept twisting the
umbrella-shaft all the time with a gyrating movement to and fro, which
imparted to the disc of the umbrella the hesitation of a wave. He
followed the Queen with a strange slow stride. For long seconds
he would pause with one foot held aloft in the attitude of a
high-stepping horse, which distorted his dwarfish body into a diabolic
convulsion, like Durer's angel of horror. He seemed a familiar spirit,
a mocking devil, the wicked _Spielmann_ of the "Miracle" play, whose
harsh laughter echoes through the empty room when the last cup is
emptied, the last shilling gone, and the dreamer awakes from his
dream.

Behind him followed five or six men carrying large oval lanterns,
also inscribed with the name of the house; and after them came a
representative collection of the officials of the proud establishment,
a few foxy old women and a crowd of swaggering men, spotty
and vicious-looking. The _Orian_ (Chief Courtesan) reached the
cross-roads. There, as if moved by machinery or magnetism, she slowly
turned to the left. She made her way towards one of a row of small,
old-fashioned native houses, on the road down which the Barringtons
had come. Here the umbrella was lowered. The beauty bowed her
monumental head to pass under the low doorway, and settled herself on
a pile of cushions prepared to receive her.

Almost at once the popular interest was diverted to the appearance of
another procession, precisely similar, which was debouching from the
opposite road. The new _Orian_ garbed in blue, with a sash of gold and
a design of cherry-blossom, supported by her two little attendants,
wobbled towards another of the little houses. On her disappearing a
third procession came into sight.

"Ah!" sighed Asako, "what lovely kimonos! Where do they get them
from?"

"I don't know," said Yae, "some of them are quite old. They come out
fresh year after year for a different girl."

Yae, with her dis