their paper helmets, wadded gowns,
and quilted petticoats, with long, clumsy guns over their shoulders;
and learned scholars in brown gowns, blue bordered, and golden birds
on their caps. The high officers, cousins to the emperor, have the
sacred yellow girdle round their waists, and very long braided tails
hanging below their small caps. Here and there you may see a high,
narrow box, resting on poles, carried by two men. It is the only kind
of carriage which you will see in these streets, and in it is a lady
going out to take the air; although I am sadly afraid she gets but
little, shut up there in her box. I would rather be like Pen-se, a
poor, hardworking little girl, with a fresh life on the river, and a
hard mat spread for her bed in the boat at night. How would you like
to live in a boat on a pleasant river with the ducks and geese? I
think you would have a very jolly time, rocked to sleep by the tide,
and watched over by the dancing boat-lights. But this poor lady
couldn't walk, or enjoy much, if she were allowed. Shall I tell you
why? When she was a very little girl, smaller than you are, smaller
than Pen-se is now, her soft baby feet were bound up tightly, the toes
turned and pressed under, and the poor little foot cramped so that
she could scarcely stand. This was done that her feet might never
grow large, for in this country on the other side of the world one is
considered very beautiful who has small feet; and now that she is a
grown lady, as old perhaps as your mamma, she wears such little shoes
you would think them too small for yourself. It is true they are very
pretty shoes, made of bright-colored satin, and worked all over
with gold and silver thread, and they have beautiful white soles of
rice-paper; and the poor lady looks down at them and says to herself
proudly, "Only three inches long." And forgetting how much the
bandages pained her, and not thinking how sad it is only to be able
to hobble about a little, instead of running and leaping as children
should, she binds up the feet of Lou, her dear little daughter, in the
great house on the hill, and makes her a poor, helpless child; not
so happy, with all her flower-gardens, gold and silver fish, and
beautiful gold-feathered birds, as Pen-se with her broad, bare feet,
and comfortable, fat little toes, as she stands in the wet tanka-boat,
helping her mother wash it with river-water, while the leather shoes
of both of them lie high and dry on the edge of