290 
A LADY S BOUDOIR. 
In the seclusion of her scrupulously clean but 
simply furnished apartment sits the Niphon belle, 
in that attitude peculiar to all classes in Japan, her 
legs bent under her, and the palms of her hands 
restino: on her knees. One of her attendants kneels 
behind her, and combs her long hair from her fore- 
head, and arranges it in hea\y coils upon the top of 
her head. Great pins of glass, ivory, or tortoise- 
shell are now placed at oblique angles, Jhd perhaps 
a bit of scarlet ribbon is added, giving her head a 
peculiarly piquant, quaint, and picturesque cha- 
racter. The tortoiseshell and golden combs, the 
enormous chignons worn by European ladies, and 
the long stiletto hair-pins still affected by the 
Eoman contadina, are not a whit more extravagant 
than are the ornaments of a Japanese lady’s coiffure. 
The wives of the Mikado are, I believe, the only 
ladies in Japan who wear their hair hanging loose 
about their shoulders. 
The pattern of our maiden’s silken robes is 
neat, usually finely checkered, and the colours arc 
quiet and unexceptionable. Her ample outer gar- 
