I laid me down on the bamboo porch in the pensive shape of a mermaid fresh from the sea. The sportive breezes frolicked with my hair. They must be mischievous boys of the air. I thought the reason why Meriken coiffure seemed savage and without art was mainly because it prized more of natural beauty. Naturalness is the highest of all beauties. Sayo shikaraba! Let me learn the beauty of American freedom, starting with my hair! Are you sure it’s not slovenliness? Woman’s slovenliness is only forgiven where no gentleman is born. 2nd—Occasional forgetfulness, I venture to say, is one of woman’s charms. But I fear too many lapses in my case fill the background. I amuse myself sometimes fancying whether I shall forget my husband’s name (if I ever have one). How shall I manage “shall” and “will”? My memory of it is faded. I searched for a printed slip, “How to use Shall and Will.” I pressed to explore even the pantry after it. Afterward I recalled that Professor asserted that Americans were not precise in grammar. The affirmation of any professor isn’t weighty enough. But my restlessness was cured somehow. * * * * * “This must be the age of Jap girls!” I ejaculated. I was reading a paper on our bamboo land, penned by Mr. Somebody. The style was inferior to Irving’s. I have read his gratifying “Sketch Book.” I used to sleep holding it under my wooden pillow. Woman feels happy to stretch her hand even in dream, and touch something that belongs to herself. “Sketch Book” was my child for many, many months. Mr. Somebody has lavished adoring words over my sisters. Arigato! Thank heavens! If he didn’t declare, however, that “no sensible musume will prefer a foreign raiment to her kimono!” He failed to make of me a completely happy nightingale. Shall I meet the Americans in our flapping gown? I imagined myself hitting off a tune of “Karan Coron” with clogs, in circumspect steps, along Fifth Avenue of somewhere. The throng swarmed around me. They tugged my silken sleeves, which almost swept the ground, and inquired, “How much a yard?” Then they implored me to sing some Japanese ditty. I’ll not play any sensational rôle for any price. Let me remain a homely lass, though I express no craft in Meriken dress. Do I look shocking in a corset? “In Pekin you have to speak Makey Hey Rah” is my belief. 3rd—My hand has seldom lifted anything weightier than a comb to adjust my hair flowing down my neck. The “silver” knife (large and sharp enough to fight the Russians) dropped and cracked a bit of the rim of the big plate. My hand tired. My uncle and I were seated at a round table in a celebrated American restaurant, the “Western Sea House.” It was my first occasion to face an orderly heavy Meriken table d’hote. Its fertile taste was oily, the oppressive smell emetic. Must I make friends with it? I am afraid my small stomach is only fitted for a bowl of rice and a few cuts of raw fish.