The indoor _chādar_, or “prayer-_chādar_,” is often of pretty print or muslin, and when Rubabeh puts on her clean white trousers, shirt and headkerchief, with a bright frill of skirt round the waist and a pretty jacket and _chādar_, she makes a very bright and effective picture. But when she goes out she must put on dark over-trousers which cover everything up to the waist, and over her head, in place of the pretty prayer _chādar_, she must throw a large black _chādar_ which hangs over everything, while a long strip of white cotton hangs down in front of her face with drawn thread work in front of the eyes, so that she may be able to see without being seen. So, unlike our streets, the Persian ones get their colour from the men and boys, while the women and girls supply the darker, duller element. Bright blue is the commonest colour for the men’s coats, and green is not uncommon, while, at the New Year, pink, yellow, lilac and other colours make the streets very gay indeed. The children are dressed just like their fathers and mothers, and are little imitation men and women. The little tots look so funny sometimes; tiny boys toddling about in long trousers, frockcoats, and grown-up hats, and wee girls, who cannot yet speak distinctly, in the long trousers, short skirts and _chādars_ of the women. It seems to suggest that no great distinction is made between children and grown-ups, and really there is not as much difference as we find at home. The children are taught to take life very seriously and are treated as little men and women before their time, and so they have no time to grow up into proper men and women, and the result is that we find the children too grown-up and the grown-ups too childish. You will find, roughly speaking, if you look at animals that the higher the animal, the longer its childhood lasts, because it has more growing up to do. Caterpillars and tadpoles look after themselves from the time of coming out of the egg, mice grow up in a few weeks, horses in a few years, and man takes longer to grow up than any animal. Now Muhammad, the false prophet whom the Persians believe in and obey, had no such high standard to set before them, no such high ideal for them to grow up to, as our Lord Jesus Christ set before His followers and enables them to grow up to; and so his religion provides only a short time for growing up, and stunts instead of assisting the growth both of individual Muhammadans and of Muhammadan nations. But we must get back to our Persian children and their clothes. Their day-clothes we have seen; what about their night-clothes? They have none. They just take off their outer garments and lie down in the rest, and in the morning they just get up and put on their outer garments again. Sometimes they do not put off anything. “We are so tired,” said some ladies one New Year’s morning. “With all our new clothes on we could not lie down, we should have crushed them, so we sat up all night.”