HOW A COTTON WRAPPER BECAME VIVIFIED. 
133 
had passed her, when she gave a scream and took to 
flight with unlooked-for activity. 
The other w^as “a young lady of sweet sixteen,” and 
she came gayly around another corner just as the old 
woman was disappearing behind the one wq had passed. 
Her apparel was remarkable for its extreme simplicity 
and uncleanliness, and she no sooner saw us than she 
turned her face to the — which was inconveniently 
high to leap, — and, trembling like the restless leaf of the 
poetical aspen, allowed us to pass without even deigning a 
smile. Then, as soon as we were beyond her she followed 
the old woman’s example, being suddenly transformed, 
from a shrinking figure of fear, into a flying mass com- 
posed of a thin cotton wrapper, a pair of arms and legs, 
and a head of dishevelled, jet-black hair. 
Finally we emerged from the city into the outskirts, 
then into the by-paths of the fields, where we met with a 
Loo-choo gentleman and his servant upon their way, as 
we subsequently inferred, to spend the day with a friend. 
The boy carried his master’s “ chow'chow-box” which 
contained his dinner, saki, &c., as it is the fashion in Loo- 
choo for the guests to carry their meals along. This 
gentleman directed us by the shortest cut to the high- 
road to the capital city of Shudi, which we were in search 
of, and at the end of an hour’s walk we found ourselves 
entering under the heavy archway which is stretched 
across the road at the edge of the city, though there are 
no gates to close, and no walls extending fi'om it to be 
defended. It looks more like a consular triumphal arch 
than any thing else. We had now walked some four 
miles over a road some forty feet broad, which was 
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