needed for combing her hair. Then begins a long and tedious operation
that may continue for two hours. Finally the hair is ready for the
ornaments, jewels and flowers which are brought by another servant on a
large tray. The mistress selects the ones she wishes, placing them in
her hair with her own hands.

Some of these flowers are exquisite. The Chinese are expert at making
artificial flowers which are true to nature in every detail. Often
above the flower a beautiful butterfly is poised on a delicate spring,
and looks so natural that it is easy to be deceived into believing it
to be alive. When the jasmine is in bloom beautiful creations are made
of these tiny flowers by means of standards from which protrude fine
wires on which the flowers are strung in the shape of butterflies or
other symbols, and the flowers massed in this way make a very effective
ornament. With the exception of the jasmine the flowers used in the
hair are all artificial, though natural flowers are worn in
season--roses in summer, orchids in late summer, and chrysanthemums in
autumn.

The prevailing idea with the Chinese ladies is that the foreign woman
does not comb her hair. I have often heard my friends apologizing to
ladies whom they have brought to see me for the first time, and on whom
they wanted me to make a good impression, by saying:

"You must not mind her hair; she is really so busy she has no time to
comb it. All her time is spent in acts of benevolence."

At the first audience when the Empress Dowager received the foreign
ladies, she presented each of them with two boxes of combs, one ivory
inlaid with gold, the other ordinary hard wood, and the set was
complete even to the fine comb. One cannot but wonder if Her Majesty
had not heard of the untidy locks of the foreign woman, which she
attributed to a lack of proper combs.

After the hair has been properly combed and ornamented, cosmetics of
white and carmine are brought for the face and neck. The Manchu lady
uses these in great profusion, her Chinese sister more sparingly. No
Chinese lady, unless a widow or a woman past sixty, is supposed to
appear in the presence of her family without a full coating of powder
and paint. A lady one day complained to me of difficulty in lifting her
eyelids, and consulted me as to the reason.

"Perhaps," said I, "they are partially paralyzed by the lead in your
cosmetics. Wash off the paint and see if the nerves do not recover
their tone."