trousseau was open to the inspection of all the ladies present. Feasting
and dancing were the order of the hours until midnight, and then Kiku's
parents bade her farewell, and she was left a bride in a new home.

"Where did the young couple go?" "What was the route of their
bridal-tour?" "Perhaps they made a late wedding-journey?" "Of course
Japan has many fine watering-places to which married couples resort?"
These are American questions. The fashion of making bridal-tours is not
Japanese. Many a lovely spot might serve for such a purpose in
everywhere beautiful Japan. The lake and mountains of Hakone; the
peerless scenery, trees, waterfalls and tombs of Nikko, where sleeps the
mighty Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line; the spas of
Atami,--all these are spots which if in America would be thronged with
bridal-parties. Caucasians in Japan even make Fusiyama's summit the goal
of their wedded steps, but our Kiku and Taro went nowhere.

"At home" for three days is the general rule in Japan. All their friends
came to see them, and presents were showered on the happy pair. The
great Shô-gun, remembering his former page, sent Taro a present of a
flawless ball of pure rock-crystal five inches in diameter. Prince
Echizen, his feudal lord, presented him with a splendid saddle with gilt
flaps and a pair of steel stirrups inlaid with gold and silver and
bronze, with the crest of the Echizen clan glittering in silver upon it.
From his own father he received a jet-black horse brought from the
province of Nambu, and an equine descendant of the Arab sire presented
by the viceroy of India to the Japanese embassy to the pope in 1589. On
the delightful wonders of the gifts to Kiku our masculine pen shrinks
from expatiating. On the third day after her marriage Kiku visited her
parents, and after that spent many days in returning the visits of all
who had called on her.