I would send it to you complete, for it is a curiosity. Imagine such complicated titles as these: “Minister’s second cook’s girl, Ume, age 2;” “Minister’s servant’s cousin’s boy, age 11;” “Student’s interpreter’s teacher’s girl;” “Vice-Consul’s jinrikisha-man’s boy.” And so it went on, till there were fifty-eight of them of all ages, from one up to nineteen. Some of them, indeed, were less than a year old; and I was amused on the evening of the 2d at having the list brought back to me with this note (Ogita’s English is still highly individual!) “Marked X is declined to the invitation.” On looking down the column, I found that ominous looking cross only against one name, that of Yasu, daughter of Ito Kanejiro, Mr. G——’s cook. This recalcitrant little person turned out to be six weeks old—an early age for parties even nowadays. Miss Yasu, having been born in November, was put down in the following January as two years old, after the puzzling Japanese fashion. Then I found that they would write boys as girls, girls as boys, grown-ups as babies, and so on. Even at the last moment a doll had to be turned into a sword, a toy tea-set into a work-box, a history of Europe into a rattle; but people who grow Christmas trees are prepared for such small contingencies, and no one knew anything about it when on Friday afternoon the great tree slowly glowed into a pyramid of light, and a long procession of little Japs was marshalled in, with great solemnity and many bows, till they stood, a delighted, wide-eyed crowd, round the beautiful shining thing, the first Christmas tree any of them had ever seen. It was worth all the trouble to see the gasp of surprise and delight, the evident fear that the whole thing might be unreal and suddenly fade away. One little man of two fell flat on his back with amazement, tried to rise and have another look, and in so doing rolled over on his nose, where he lay quite silent till his relatives rescued him. Behind the children stood the mothers, quite as pleased as they, and with them one very old lady with a little child on her back. [Illustration: _Copyright, 1908, by Underwood & Underwood, New York_ MAKING GLASS AND TINSEL ORNAMENTS FOR CHRISTMAS TREES]