Mrs. Fujinami wore a perfectly plain kimono, blackish-brown in colour, with a plain gold sash. It is considered correct for middle-aged ladies in Japan to dress with modesty and reserve. She was tall for a Japanese woman and big-boned, with a long lantern-face, and an almost Jewish nose. The daughter was of her mother's build. But her face was a perfect oval, the melon-seed shape which is so highly esteemed in her country. The severity of her appearance was increased, by her blue-tinted spectacles; and like so many Japanese women, her teeth were full of gold stopping. She was resplendent in blue, the blue of the Mediterranean, with fronds of cherry-blossom and floating pink petals designed round her skirts and at the bottom of the long exaggerated sleeves. The sash of broad stiff brocade shone with light blue and silver in a kind of conventional wave pattern. This was tied at the back with a huge bow, which seemed perched upon its wearer like a gigantic butterfly alighting on a cornflower. Her straight black hair was parted on one side in "foreign" style. But her mother wore the helmet-like _marumagé_, the edifice of conservative taste in married women, which looks more like a wig than like natural hair. Rings sparkled on Sadako's fingers, and she wore a diamond ornament across her sash; but neither their taste nor their quality impressed her cousin. Her face was of the same ivory tint as Asako's, but it was hidden under a lavish coating of liquid powder. This hideous embellishment covers not only the Mongolian yellow, which every Japanese woman seems anxious to hide, but also the natural and charming nuances of young skin, under a white monotonous surface like a mask of clay. Painted roses bloomed on the girl's cheeks. The eyebrows were artificially darkened as well as the lines round the eyes. The face and its expression, in fact, were quite obscured by cosmetics; and Miss Fujinami was wrapped in a cloud of cheap scent like a servant-girl on her evening out. She spoke English well. In fact, at school she had achieved a really brilliant career, and she had even attended a University for a time with the intention of reading for a degree, an attainment rare among Japanese girls. But overwork brought on its inevitable result. Books had to be banished, and glasses interposed to save the tired eyes from the light. It was a bitter disappointment for Sadako, who was a proud and ambitious girl, and it had not improved her disposition.