offerings had been made for the gift of the child who stood to these
two for love.

Arranged in the best room in the house, on five long red-covered
shelves, were dolls. Big dolls and little dolls, thin ones and fat
ones, each one to represent some royal man or woman of the long ago,
and dressed in a fashion of a time almost forgotten. There was Jimmu
Tenno, the first real emperor. His hair was done in a curious fashion
and his dress was of a wonderful brocade, while his hands clasped two
fierce-looking swords. There was Jingo, too, who had won fame and
lasting honor by her wonderful fighting, and was so great she had to
sit by the emperors and look down on the other empresses. Such a lot
of them! Some worthy to be remembered every day in the year, others
the more quickly forgotten the better.

Yuki Chan knew them all by heart, and she lingered before those she
liked and quickly passed those she did not care for. She could not be
rude to an emperor, even though he had been dead hundreds of years.
She was really not very afraid of the greatness of the old doll men
and women who sat on the shelf, still it was well to be careful about
handling them. She might be turned into a lizard or a snake, just as
the old lodge-keeper had said.

But her delight was in the miniature toilet articles of solid silver,
costly gold lacquer, and porcelain, so tiny, so beautifully carved
they must have meant the eyesight of some workman, only too glad to
shut out the sunlight forever if he might produce just one perfect
thing.

The things, however, that made Yuki Chan clap her hands and the