delicate pink embroidered all over with sprays of cherry blossoms in
deeper shades. Her obi, or sash, was of pale green silk. Her hair was
elaborately pompadoured and drawn up in the back into a large glossy roll
held in place with tortoise shell pins. No doubt it had taken hours to
arrange; two, at the very least.

Billie patted her own smooth rolls serenely.

"Suppose I had to sleep with my neck on a little wooden bench every night
to preserve my _coiffure_," she thought. "I think I'd just lay my head
on the executioner's block and say, 'Strike it off. It's not worth the
trouble.'"

"Think garden pretty, O'Kami San?" began Mary, whose method of talking
with the Japanese was to preserve only the framework of a sentence and
drop all articles and small words.

"Much pretty. Me--like honorable garden and beautiful American ladee,"
answered O'Kami, speaking slowly and distinctly.

English pronunciation never seemed to trouble the Japanese. It was only
choice of words and construction.

"What do you do all day, O'Kami San?" asked Elinor.

"Much honorable work," answered the Japanese girl. "Cook-ing; sew-ing";
she pointed to her kimono; "mu-seek; book-stu-dee. Ah, much work to
become wife."

"You are not thinking of marrying, surely? Your brother says you are only