After we had finished, Her Majesty started to tell us what to wear for the ladies' audience. She said to me: "You need not come to the throne to-morrow, there will only be gentlemen. I will get one of the Ministers from Wai-Wu-Pu (Bureau of Foreign Affairs). I don't want you to talk to so many strange men. It is not the Manchu custom. These people are all strangers. They might go back to America and tell everybody what you look like." At the same time Her Majesty gave orders for the Imperial Yellow Gown to be brought in next day, for the gentleman's audience. She said that she must dress in her official robe for this occasion. This robe was made of yellow satin, embroidered with gold dragons. She wore a necklace composed of one hundred and eight pearls, which formed part of this official dress. She said: "I don't like to wear this official robe. It is not pretty, but I am afraid I will have to." She said to all of us: "You need not dress especially." The next morning Her Majesty got up early, and was busier than ever. It seemed to me that whenever we had an audience we always had so much trouble. Something was sure to go wrong and make Her Majesty angry. She said: "I want to look nice, and be amiable, but these people always make me angry. I know the American Admiral will go home and tell his people about me, and I don't want him to have a wrong impression." It took her almost two hours to dress her hair, and by that time it was too late for her usual morning audience, so she proposed holding that after the foreigners had gone away. She looked at herself in the looking-glass, with her Imperial robe on, and told me that she did not like it, and asked me whether I thought the foreigners would know that it was an official robe. "I look too ugly in yellow. It makes my face look the same color as my robe," she said. I suggested that as it was only a private audience, if she wished to dress differently, it would not matter at all. She seemed delighted, and I was afraid lest I had not made a proper suggestion, but anyway I was too busy to worry. Her Majesty ordered that her different gowns should be brought in, and after looking them over she selected one embroidered all over with the character "Shou" (long life), covered with precious stones and pearls, on pale green satin. She tried it on, and said that it was becoming to her, so she ordered me to go to the jewel-room and get flowers to match for her hair. On one side of the headdress was the character (shou) and on the other side was a bat (the bat in China is considered to be lucky). Of course her shoes, handkerchiefs and everything else were embroidered in the same way. After she was dressed, she smiled and said: "I look all right now. We had better go to the audience hall and wait for them, and at the same time we can play a game of dice." Then to us all she said: "All of you will stay at the back of the screen during the audience. You can see all right, but I don't wish that you should