Through all there seemed to Barbara to strike a sense of the tenacity of the old, of the stubborn persistence of type, as though eyes behind a mask looked grimly at the mirror's reflection of some outlandish and but half-accustomed masquerade. It was the shadow of the old Japan of castes and spies and censors, of homage and _hara-kiri_, of punctilio and porcelain. Trolley cars rumbled past; skeins of telegraph wire spun across the vision. Yet when stone wall gaped or green hedge opened, it was to reveal the curving tops of Buddhist _torii_ in quaint vistas of straight-boled trees, gliding Tartar contours of roof between clumps of palm, or bamboo thickets with shadows as black as ink; while from the lazy scum of the wide, moat-like, stone gutters, open to the all-putrefying sun, rose thick, marshy odors suggesting the vast languor of a land more ancient than Egypt and Nineveh. The carriage stopped abruptly at a cross street. A _Shinto_ funeral _cortège_ was passing. Twelve bearers, six on each side, clad in mourning _houri_ of pure white, bore on their shoulders the hearse, like a shrine, built of clean unpainted wood, beautifully grained, and with carven roof and curtains of green and gold brocade. Priests in yellow robes, with curved gauze caps and stoles of scarlet and black, walked at the head, fanning themselves now and then with little fans drawn from their girdles. Coolies, dressed in white like the hearse bearers, carried stiff, conical bouquets, six feet long, made of flowers of staring colors, and clumps of lotos made of _papier maché_ covered with gold and silver leaf. The chief mourner, a woman, rode smiling in a _rick'sha_. She wore a silver-gray _kimono_ and a tall canopied cap of white brocade with wide floating strings like an old-fashioned bonnet. "Well, of all things!" said Patricia, in an awe-struck whisper. "What do you think of that?" For the file of _rick'sha_ following her carried a curious assemblage of mourners. In each sat a dog, some large, some small, with great bows of black or white crepe tied to their collars. Taka, the driver, turned his head and spoke: "Dog-doctor die," he said. "All dog very sorry." "It's the 'vet.,' father," Patricia cried. "He is dead, then--and all his old patients are attending the funeral! See, Barbara! They are lined up according to diplomatic precedence. That French poodle in front belongs to the Japanese senior prince. The Aberdeen is the British Ambassador's. And there's the Italian Embassy bull-terrier and the Spanish _Chargé's_ 'chin.' The foreigners' dogs have black bows and the others white. Why is that, I wonder?" "I presume," said the Ambassador, "because white is the Japanese mourning color."