WELL, SISTERS, that minute there was a commotion in the room. Those who had been leaning against the wall stood up, and the strange-looking men Cousin D. called ambassadors straightened up and fluttered a little, as peacocks spread their feathers when the sun breaks out.
Before I could speak, in came the highest cockalorum among the Japanese, which wasn't very high after all.
"Good gracious!" says I to Cousin D. "The man out there told me the ladies must all go into the blue room. Here I've been hiding behind the door, so as not to be seen, and the first Japanese stranger that comes in is a female woman! Goodness gracious! and so are all the rest!"
"No, no," says Cousin D., "it's a man—they're all men."
"With those Dolly Vardens on?" says I. "Do you think I was brought up in the woods, to take doves for night-hawks?"
"It's the Japanese fashion," says he.
"For men to dress in—well, skirts?"
"Certainly. Don't you see that the lower skirt is formed into loose trousers that two or three of 'em wear?"
I did look, and saw that the black silk underskirt some of these heathen Japanese wore was puckered up a little around the ankles, just enough to show off two peaked shoes, that must have been lovely wearing for a foot that was all great toe, but awkward for one that wasn't. In fact, I began to be awfully puzzled about the dress of the first one that came along, for above the skirt of purple silk was a Dolly Varden, all but the puffing out, of black silk, spotted over with white needlework. To top off all, this Japanee wore the funniest sort of a thing on the head, like a shiny black wash-bowl, with a hole in it, from which a stumpy black ball stuck up in the air—about the pertest-looking thing you ever saw. Around the edge was a white binding, all curlicued off with queer black figures, and a lot of stiff black stuff streamed down from behind, like a crow's tail.