case,--the work of my lady's delicate fingers,--are most agreeable reminders of the kindness and sweetness of the little wife, whose sixteen summers have been spent among the surroundings of thirty years ago, and who lives, like the enchanted princess of the fairy tales, wrapped about by a spell which separates her from the bustling world of to-day. The product of the past,--the daughter of the last of the Shōguns,--she dwells in her enchanted house, among the relics of a past which is still the present to her and to her household. So lovely, so æsthetic, so dainty and charming seems the world into which one enters there, that one would not care to break the spell that holds it as it is, and let the girl-wife, with her gentlewomen and her kneeling servants, hurry forward into the busy, perplexing life of to-day. May time deal gently with her and hers, nor rudely break the enchantment that surrounds her! CHAPTER VIII. SAMURAI WOMEN. Samurai was the name given to the military class among the Japanese,--a class intermediate between the Emperor and his nobles and the great mass of the common people who were engaged in agriculture, mechanical arts, or trade. Upon the samurai rested the defense of the country from enemies at home or abroad, as well as the preservation of literature and learning, and the conduct of all official business. At the time of the fall of feudalism, there were, among the thirty-four millions of Japanese, about two million samurai; and in this class, in the broadest sense of the word, must be included the daimiōs, as well as their two-sworded retainers. But as the greater among the samurai were distinguished by special class names, the word as commonly used, and as used throughout this work, applies to the military class, who served the Shōgun and the daimiōs, and who were supported by yearly allowances from the treasuries of their lords. These form a distinct class, actuated by motives quite different from those of the lower classes, and filling a great place in the history of the country. As the nobility, through long inheritance of power and wealth, became weak in body and mind, the samurai grew to be, more and more, not only the sword, but the brain of Japan; and to-day the great work of bringing the country out of the middle ages into the nineteenth century is being performed by the samurai more than by any other class.