Formal Children's Parties Have Been Given In This House, For Which
Formal Invitations, In The Name Of The House-Child, A Girl Of
Twelve, Are Sent Out.
About 3 p.m. the guests arrive, frequently
attended by servants; and this child, Haru, receives them at the
top of the stone steps, and conducts each into the reception room,
where they are arranged according to some well-understood rules of
precedence.
Haru's hair is drawn back, raised in front, and
gathered into a double loop, in which some scarlet crepe is
twisted. Her face and throat are much whitened, the paint
terminating in three points at the back of the neck, from which all
the short hair has been carefully extracted with pincers. Her lips
are slightly touched with red paint, and her face looks like that
of a cheap doll. She wears a blue, flowered silk kimono, with
sleeves touching the ground, a blue girdle lined with scarlet, and
a fold of scarlet crepe lies between her painted neck and her
kimono. On her little feet she wears white tabi, socks of cotton
cloth, with a separate place for the great toe, so as to allow the
scarlet-covered thongs of the finely lacquered clogs, which she
puts on when she stands on the stone steps to receive her guests,
to pass between it and the smaller toes. All the other little
ladies were dressed in the same style, and all looked like ill-
executed dolls. She met them with very formal but graceful bows.
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