It was very hard not to laugh, but no one did, each turning her head and pretending to examine the doll nearest her.
"And which do you like best?" asked Miss Helen.
"This one," O-Hana told her, pointing to a very modern creature in a costume so much like their own that the girls could not restrain their mirth at the reply.
"She is very beautiful," said Nan hoping that her praise would do away with the effect of the laughter.
"She is very ugly, very poor," replied O-Hana, "but," she added, "I like her the best."
"It would take hours to see them all," said Miss Helen, "and we must not stay too long." So after a cursory view of officers and court ladies, musicians and dancers, ancient heirlooms in quaint antique costumes elbowing smart Paris creatures, they finally took their leave of the dolls, wishing they might stay longer.
There was a little more ceremonious talk and then as polite a leave-taking, O-Hana doing her part as sedately as her mother.
"I should like to have kissed that darling child," said Nan as they all started off again, "but I didn't suppose it would be considered just the correct thing."
"Indeed it would not," Mrs. Craig told her, "for the Japanese regard it as a very vulgar proceeding. I fancy we foreigners shock their tender sensibilities oftener than we imagine, for they are so exceedingly ceremonious and attach the utmost importance to matters which we do not regard at all."
"I know I shall dream of that funny little doll-like creature, O-Hana," Nan went on, "with her little touches of rouge on her cheeks, her bright clothes and her hair all so shining and stuck full of ornaments. As for Mrs. Otamura, she is delicately lovely as I never imagined any one to be, such tiny hands, such a fine, delicate skin, such an exquisitely modulated voice, and so dignified and gracious; I felt a very clumsy, big, overgrown person beside her."