and's home, as is the invariable custom. Her toilet finished, she
stepped out of her childhood's home to take her place in the _norimono_
or palanquin which, borne on the shoulders of four men, was to convey
her to her future home.

Just as Kiku stands in the vestibule of her father's house let us
photograph her for you. A slender maiden of seventeen, with cheeks of
carnation; eyes that shine under lids not so broadly open as the
Caucasian maiden's, but black and sparkling; very small hands with
tapering fingers, and very small feet encased in white mitten-socks; her
black hair glossy as polished jet, dressed in the style betokening
virginity, and decked with a garland of blossoms. Her robe of pure white
silk folds over her bosom from right to left, and is bound at the waist
by the gold-embroidered girdle, which is supported by a lesser band of
scarlet silken crape, and is tied into huge loops behind. The skirt of
the dress sweeps in a trail. Her under-dress is of the finest and
softest white silk. In her hands she carries a half-moon-shaped cap or
veil of floss silk. Its use we shall see hereafter. She salutes her
cousin, who, clad in ceremonial dress with his ever-present two swords,
is waiting to accompany her in addition to her family servants and
bearers, and steps into the norimono.

The four bearers, the servants and the samurai pass down along the
beautiful Kanda River, whose waters mirror the stars, and whose depths
of shade re-echo to the gurgling of sculls, the rolling of ripples and
the songs of revelers. The cortege enters one of the gate-towers of the
old city-walls, passes beneath the shade of its ponderous copper-clad
portals, and soon arrives at the main entrance of the Yamashiro
_yashiki_. Here they find the street in front and the stone walk
covered with matting, and a friend of Taro's, in full dress, waiting to
receive the cortege. Of course the gazers of the neighborhood are
waiting respectfully in crowds to catch a glimpse of the coming bride.

The go-between and a few friends of the bridegroom come out to receive
the bride and deliver her to her own servant and two of her own young
maiden friends, who had gone before to the Yamashiro mansion. The room
in which the families of the bride and groom and their immediate friends
are waiting, though guiltless of "furniture," as all Japanese rooms are,
is yet resplendent with gilt-paper screens, bronzes, tiny lacquered
tables and the Japanese nuptial em