So her day passed, a wonderful day, steeped in love and childish recollections. At night, the winds being chill, and the fear of robbers inherent in the Japanese mind, all shoji, and after them the wooden storm panels (amado), were tightly drawn. In the ashes of the great brass hibachi balls of charcoal glowed like incandescent apples. A lamp was suspended from the ceiling, swinging but a few feet above their heads. Here the four women of the household grouped themselves. Tetsujo had gone out for a call. The pieces of kimono, ripped and washed that morning by Maru San, were now to be refashioned. Iriya, Suzumé, and Maru drew forth little sewing-boxes and prepared for work. Yuki, half sitting, half lying on the floor, fondled the tailless cat, and declared boldly that she hated sewing and was not going to begin that part of a Japanese woman's drudgery quite so early. "All good wives love sewing, particularly on the master's nightclothes," said Suzumé, reprovingly, and peering over the rim of huge horn spectacles toward the culprit. "The o jo san will tell us something of foreign habits as we sew," suggested Iriya, the peacemaker. "Yes--yes--I will be what is called over there the bureau of information," laughed wilful Yuki. "Any questions from you, Mr. Cat?" she cried, holding the drowsy animal high above her and smiling into its blinking eyes.--"Do American cats like rice?" "No." "Queer cats, you say,--and so they think of you." "Do they wear tails?" "Yes, long ones." "What do they use them for?" "For getting pinched in doors." "No more questions, Pussy San? Ah, you will never learn. Ruskin says that curiosity forms tendrils of the mind." "What I would like to feel sure of, honorable young lady, is this," began Suzumé, primly, with a disapproving glance toward the cat. "We are ready, Madame Suzumé, speak on," said Yuki, cuddling pussy back into her sleeve. "Is it really true, as newspapers and pictures say, that women over there, even women of decent character, go to evening entertainments with no clothes above the waist, dance with red-faced men until they are on the verge of apoplexy, and then have to be restored by much fanning and a cold medicine called 'punch'?" "Not altogether, good nurse," said Yuki, fighting hard to retain a semblance of gravity. "They wear cloth and flowers, feathers and jewelry above the waist, and arrange them with great beauty; but it is true that they dance with men, and that their shoulders and arms are bare." "That is a strange custom," mused Suzumé. "Even our Sacred Empress condescends to go with bare arms. Why, I wonder, do they wish to expose arms more than legs? There is more leg, and in a supple young girl it is more shapely." "That is too hard a thing for me," laughed Yuki. "Well, Maru, your eyes are big and solemn like the Owl San in our pine. What is your question?"