You know, my dear Tching-bit-ha-ki, that I have not brought with me many of our toys. I only provided a few as presents to attachés’ wives, and perhaps ministers. Happily, when I received the billet of Mademoiselle Alexandrine, I had not yet distributed any of them; nevertheless, I felt that my collection was too contemptible to be honored with a glance from the divine _danseuse_, and I resolved to add to it before showing it to her. I obtained all the information I could, and then went to Darbo’s, Rue Richelieu, and to Gamba’s, Rue Neuve de Capucines—two merchants of celebrity in _Chinoiseries_. I purchased at these shops two screens, a pagoda of rice, two boxes of cloves, four tulip vases, two complete services of porcelain, with a chamber tea service, a table of sandal wood, inlaid with cypress, four figures of mandarins in clay from Pei-ho, twelve pairs of embroidered slippers, a shop in miniature, a chamberlain with his wand of office, two leaves of tam-tam, a parasol, two lions _frisés_, and a copy of the royal carriage of the brother of the sun and moon, the Emperor Tsieng-Long. Most of these _Chinoiseries_ were made in Paris, and I doubted particularly the royal carriage; but the imitation was so good, that a mandarin only of the first class could distinguish the true from the counterfeit. I did not cheapen these things, and paid the bill, an enormous sum—thirty-seven hundred francs. Night arrived; I went to bed to enjoy dreams of happiness to come, and slept with my copy of the divine foot in my hand. My first thought in the early morning was to put my Chinese riches in order, to exhibit them to the best advantage. What a happiness, said I to myself, if she will deign to point her foot to some one of these _bagatelles_, and say, in her flute-like tones, “Dear doctor, give me that for my boudoir.” At length 12 o’clock struck, and my door opened. Oh! the City of Houris will be one day destroyed for having forgotten to produce Mademoiselle Alexandrine de St. Phar! I was thunderstruck at her morning beauty. The divine _danseuse_ led her little sister by the hand. She threw her hat and shawl upon the first chair, pressed my hands, ran about the room, _pirouetting_ before each _Chinoiserie_ with cries of pleasure and joy which went to my very heart. When she had exhausted every exclamation of delight, she said to me, “Dear doctor, I am sorry to have brought your god-daughter with me—she asks for every thing she sees. Oh, these children! one should never show them any thing. It is true I am somewhat of a child in that way, too. If I had to choose some one of these things, I should be in great embarrassment, and would not dare to do it, lest I should to-morrow regret that I had not taken something else.” In saying these words with delicious volubility, she pushed out her right foot from the protection of the shortest of robes. She might have seduced the most virtuous Lama of Lin-Ching.