By George Japy.

[Illustration]


It has always been said that the Japanese are the French of the Orient.
Be that as it may, it is very clear that in certain traits which
characterize the French, there is no resemblance whatever between the
people of those two nations.

Almost as soon as a French baby (a girl, be it understood) is born, its
first instinct is to stretch out its tiny hands for a mirror, in which
to admire its beautiful little face and its graceful movements. This
natural, and we may say inborn, taste grows with the child's growth, and
ere the fair girl has reached her seventeenth year, her ideal of perfect
bliss is to find herself in a room with mirrors on every side. There is
indeed a room in the Palace of Versailles which is the elysium of the
Frenchwoman. It is a long room with looking-glasses from ceiling to
floor, and the said floor is polished so that it reflects, at any rate,
the shadow of the feet.

Now, in the little Japanese village of Yowcuski a looking-glass was an
unheard-of thing, and girls did not even know what they looked like,
except on hearing the description which their lovers gave them of their
personal beauty (which description, by-the-bye, was sometimes slightly
biased, according as the lover was more or less devoted).

[Illustration: "HE PICKED UP ONE DAY IN THE STREET A SMALL POCKET
HAND-MIRROR."]