real ones of Japanese history.

[6] _Kotatsu_, a charcoal fire in a brazier or a small fireplace in the
floor, over which a wooden frame is set and the whole covered by a
quilt. The family sit about it in cold weather with the quilt drawn up
over the feet and knees.

There are occasional all-day visits to the theatre, too, where, seated
on the floor in a box, railed off from those adjoining, our little girl,
in company with her mother and sisters, enjoys, though with paroxysms of
horror and fear, the heroic historical plays which are now almost all
that is left of the heroic old Japan. Here she catches the spirit of
passionate loyalty that belonged to those days, forms her ideals of what
a noble Japanese woman should be willing to do for parents or husband,
and comes away taught, as she could be by no other teaching, what the
spirit was that animated her ancestors,--what spirit must animate her,
should she wish to be a worthy descendant of the women of old.

Among these surroundings, with these duties and amusements, our little
girl grows to womanhood. The unconscious and beautiful spirit of her
childhood is not driven away at the dawn of womanhood by thoughts of
beaux, of coming out in society, of a brief career of flirtation and
conquest, and at the end as fine a marriage, either for love or money,
as her imagination can picture. She takes no thought for these things
herself, and her intercourse with young men, though free and
unconstrained, has about it no grain of flirtation or romantic interest.
When the time comes for her to marry, her father will have her meet some
eligible young man, and both she and the young man will know, when they
are brought together, what is the end in view, and will make up their
minds about the matter. But until that time comes, the modest Japanese
maiden carries on no flirtations, thinks little of men except as higher
beings to be deferred to and waited on, and preserves the childlike
innocence of manner, combined with a serene dignity under all
circumstances, that is so noticeable a trait in the Japanese woman from
childhood to old age.

The Japanese woman is, under this discipline, a finished product at the
age of sixteen or eighteen. She is pure, sweet, and amiable, with great
power of self-control, and a knowledge of what to do upon all occasions.
The higher part of her nature is little developed; no great religious
truths have lifted her soul above the world into a clearer and