Peers' School
commencement, and that is the one commencement he goes to every year. So
you see I had luck, and my conscience was clear for having rubbered, and
I have seen the Emperor.

The Imperial Garden party comes off the week after we leave Tokyo. To
this party all the nobles of the third rank and above, and all the
professors in the Imperial University, and all the foreigners of latest
arrival, are asked. So a foreigner can go just once and no more unless a
Professor. We put our names down in the Ambassador's book for an
invitation before we knew all the niceties of the case. So now that we
have learned that we can go once and no more, and that we are expected
to go if we are invited, we will take back our request for an invitation
as the party is on the 17th of April, and we are to be in Kyoto on the
15th. So in our good luck, a daughter of a Baron, who is a member of the
Imperial household, has asked us to go with her to-morrow to see the
Imperial Garden where the party is to be and we may see the gardens all
the better. This Imperial Garden is one of the prince's gardens and not
the one behind the moat where the Emperor lives. It seems the fall
chrysanthemum party is in that garden, though never inside the inner
moat where no one goes unless he has an audience. The moat and the
surroundings of the palace are lovely, but as you can read the guide
book if you want a description, I will not bore you with an attempt. The
walls of the moat were built by labor of the feudal dependencies, and
like all such labor it spared no pains to be splendid. Some of the moats
have been filled up long ago, but there are still three around the
palace. Inside the outer one you may walk part of the time and see the
grand gates with their solemn guards. In these gardens the air is fresh
and the birds sing in the trees, and the dust of the city never gets
there.

To-night I am wearing tabi, those nice little toe socks which will not
fit my feet, but which are so much nicer than the felt toe slippers that
fall off your feet every time you go upstairs. As a matter of fact, I
wear ordinary house slippers in this house, but it is nicer not to and
we always take them off when we come in from outdoors. Truly, the
Japanese are a cleaner people than we are. Have I told you we bathe in a
Japanese tub? Every night a hot, very hot wooden box over three feet
deep is filled for us. This one has water turned in from a faucet, but
in Kamakura the