The Chinese lady in Peking sleeps upon a brick bed, one half of the room being built up a foot and a half above the floor, with flues running through it; and in the winter a fire is built under the bed, so that, instead of having one hot brick in her bed, she has a hundred. She rises about eight. She has a large number of women servants, a few slave girls, and if she belongs to the family of a prince, she has several eunuchs, these latter to do the heavy work about the household. Each servant has her own special duties, and resents being asked to perform those of another. When my lady awakes a servant brings her a cup of hot tea and a cake made of wheat or rice flour. After eating this a slave girl presents her with a tiny pipe with a long stem from which she takes a few whiffs. Two servants then appear with a large polished brass basin of very hot water, towels, soaps, preparations of honey to be used on her face and hands while they are still warm and moist from the bathing. After the bath they remove the things and disappear, and two other women take their places, with a tray on which are combs, brushes, hair-pomades, and the framework and accessories needed for combing her hair. Then begins a long and tedious operation that may continue for two hours. Finally the hair is ready for the ornaments, jewels and flowers which are brought by another servant on a large tray. The mistress selects the ones she wishes, placing them in her hair with her own hands. Some of these flowers are exquisite. The Chinese are expert at making artificial flowers which are true to nature in every detail. Often above the flower a beautiful butterfly is poised on a delicate spring, and looks so natural that it is easy to be deceived into believing it to be alive. When the jasmine is in bloom beautiful creations are made of these tiny flowers by means of standards from which protrude fine wires on which the flowers are strung in the shape of butterflies or other symbols, and the flowers massed in this way make a very effective ornament. With the exception of the jasmine the flowers used in the hair are all artificial, though natural flowers are worn in season--roses in summer, orchids in late summer, and chrysanthemums in autumn. The prevailing idea with the Chinese ladies is that the foreign woman does not comb her hair. I have often heard my friends apologizing to ladies whom they have brought to see me for the first time, and on whom they wanted me to make a good impression, by saying: "You must not mind her hair; she is really so busy she has no time to comb it. All her time is spent in acts of benevolence."