napes of their little necks.

Chrysantheme, with somewhat a melancholy air; my mother-in-law
Renoncule, with many affected graces, busy themselves in the midst of
the different groups, where ere long the miniature pipes are lighted.
Soon there arises a murmuring sound of discreet laughter, expressing
nothing, but having a pretty exotic ring about it, and then begins a
harmony of _pan! pan! pan!_ sharp, rapid taps against the edges of the
finely lacquered smoking-boxes. Pickled and spiced fruits are handed
round on trays of quaint and varied shapes. Then transparent china
tea-cups, no larger than half an egg-shell, make their appearance, and
the ladies are offered a few drops of sugarless tea, poured out of toy
kettles, or a sip of _saki_--(a spirit made from rice which it is the
custom to serve hot, in elegantly shaped vases, long-necked like a
heron's throat).

Several mousmes execute, one after the other, improvizations on the
_chamecen_. Others sing in sharp high voices hopping about
continually, like cicalas in delirium.

Madame Prune, no longer able to make a mystery of the long-pent up
feelings that agitate her, pays me the most marked and tender
attentions, and begs my acceptance of a quantity of little souvenirs:
an image, a little vase, a little porcelain goddess of the Moon in
Satsuma ware, a marvelously grotesque ivory figure;--I tremblingly
follow her into the dark corners whither she calls me to give me these
presents in a _tete-a-tete_.

At about nine o'clock, with a silken rustling, arrive the three
guechas in vogue in Nagasaki: Mdlles. Purete, Orange, and Printemps,
whom I have hired at four dollars a head,--an enormous price in this
country.

These three guechas are indeed the very same little creatures I heard
singing on the rainy day of my arrival, through the thin paneling of
the _Garden of Flowers_. But as I have now become thoroughly
_Japanized_, to-day they appear to me more diminutive, less
outlandish, and in no way mysterious. I treat them rather as dancers
that I have hired, and the idea that I had ever thought of marrying
one of them now makes me shrug my shoulders,--as it formerly did M.
Kangourou.

The excessive heat caused by the respiration of the mousmes and the
burning lamps, brings out the perfume of the lotus, which fills the
heavy-laden atmosphere; and the scent of the camelia-oil the ladies
use in profusion to make their hair glisten, is also strong in the
room.

Mdlle. O