ets, no bric-a-brac, no mirrors, picture frames or
glasses to be cared for, no stoves or furnaces, no windows to wash, a
large part of the cooking to be done outside, and no latest styles to be
imitated in clothing, the amount of work to be done by women is
considerably diminished, but still there remains enough to take a good
deal of time. Every morning there are the beds to be rolled up and
stored away in the closet, the mosquito nets to be taken down, the rooms
to be swept, dusted, and aired before breakfast. Besides this, there is
the washing and polishing of the _engawa_, or piazza, which runs around
the outside of a Japanese house between the _shoji_, or paper screens
that serve as windows, and the _amado_, or sliding shutters, that are
closed only at night, or during heavy, driving rains. Breakfast is to be
cooked and served, dishes to be washed (in cold water); and then perhaps
there is marketing to be done, either at shops outside or from the
vendors of fish and vegetables who bring their huge baskets of
provisions to the door; but after these duties are performed, it is
possible to sit down quietly to the day's work of sewing, studying, or
whatever else may suit the taste or necessities of the housewife. Of
sewing there is always a good deal to be done, for many Japanese dresses
must be taken to pieces whenever they are washed, and are turned, dyed,
and made over again and again, so long as there is a shred of the
original material left to work upon. There is washing, too, to be done,
although neither with hot water nor soap; and in the place of ironing,
the cotton garments, which are usually washed without ripping, must be
hung up on a bamboo pole passed through the armholes, and pulled smooth
and straight before they dry; and the silk, always ripped into breadths
before washing, must be smoothed while wet upon a board which is set in
the sun until the silk is dry.

Then there are the every day dishes which our Japanese maiden must learn
to prepare. The proper boiling of rice is in itself a study. The
construction of the various soups which form the staple in the Japanese
bill of fare; the preparation of _mochi_, a kind of rice dough, which is
prepared at the New Year, or to send to friends on various festival
occasions: these and many other branches of the culinary art must be
mastered before the young girl is prepared to assume the cares of
married life.

But though the little girl's life is not without it