"_D[=o]_-mo! you simpleton!" retorted the first. She was the one to whom Gwendolen had spoken directly, and though covered with confusion at the moment, now vaunted herself upon the incident, and prepared herself to take precedence in all comments concerning the strange doings of "I-i-jin." "_D[=o]_-mo! it is easy to observe. The men have upper bodies square, like a box, and this box is tightly covered with woollen cloth. From the lower corners of the square come two stiff legs, like posts. Now the women show no legs at all, but the middle of the body is shrunken very small, like a saké gourd about which a string has been tied when it is green. Poor things, it must surely hurt them to be so bound. It is a practice more strange than that of encasing feet, used by Chinese women." "They all look alike to me, I say," repeated the first, unimpressed by this erudition. Perhaps the boastful breath of the speaker awoke a small coal of obstinacy. "The children are small in size, so I know them to be children; but all faces are alike, as the faces of cows, pigs, and horses are alike, and all are hideous!" "That one, now, was not so frightful of aspect," ventured a kindly third, and pointed her sickle to the spot where Gwendolen, having climbed a low hillock, just disappeared beyond. "That one would have been almost good to look at, but for its nose!" "The noses of all are like these sickles," said the dogmatic first. "Buddha teaches us to be content with what cannot be changed. Perhaps to the foreigners themselves the sharp noses are even beautiful!" said the gentler critic. A chorus of hisses and low laughs greeted this unheard-of generosity. The little speaker flushed under the shower of raillery, but did not abandon her humane position. Something in the American girl's face had flashed excitement, a new interest, a feeling almost like recognition, into her narrow vista. She hoped she would be called to work often in this huge garden, where the bright-haired o jo san might wander.