heme is
evidently a very decorous young person.

Returning on board next morning, in the clear morning sun, we walk
through pathways full of dew; accompanied by a band of funny little
mousmes of six or eight years of age, who are going off to school.

Needless to say that the cicalas around us keep up their perpetual
sonorous chirping. The mountain smells delicious. The atmosphere, the
dawning day, the infantine grace of these little girls in their long
frocks and shiny chignons, all is redundant with freshness and youth.
The flowers and grasses on which we tread sparkle with dewdrops,
exhaling a perfume of freshness. What undying beauty there is, even in
Japan, in the first fresh morning hours in the country, and the
dawning hours of life!

Besides, I am quite ready to admit the attractiveness of the little
Japanese children; some of them are most fascinating. But how is it
that their charm vanishes so rapidly and is so quickly replaced by the
elderly grimace, the smiling ugliness, the monkeyish face?

XXXV.

My mother-in-law Madame Renoncule's small garden is, without
exception, one of the most melancholy spots I have seen during all my
peregrinations through the world.

Oh, the slow, enervating, dull hours spent in idle and diffuse
conversation in the dimly lighted verandah! Oh, the horrid peppered
jam in the microscopic pots! In the middle of the town, enclosed by
four walls, is this park of five yards square, with little lakes,
little mountains, and little rocks, where all wears an antiquated
appearance, and everything is covered with a greenish moldiness from
want of sun.

Nevertheless a true feeling for nature has inspired this tiny
representation of a wild spot. The rocks are well placed, the dwarf
cedars, no taller than cabbages, stretch their gnarled boughs over the
valleys in the attitude of giants wearied by the weight of centuries;
and their look of _big trees_ perplexes one and falsifies the
perspective. When from the dark recesses of the apartment one
perceives at a certain distance this diminutive landscape dimly
lighted up, the wonder is whether it is all artificial, or whether one
is not oneself the victim of some morbid illusion; and if it is not
indeed a real country view seen through a distorted vision out of
focus, or through the wrong end of a telescope.

To any one familiar with Japanese life my mother-in-law's house in
itself reveals a refined nature,--complete nudity, two or