'Where are they?' asked Nelly.
'Ku Nai-nai came in early this morning and took them away,' replied An Ching. 'She wants you to put on our kind of clothes. Make haste and we will go across the courtyard to Ku Nai-nai's room for breakfast.'
Then An Ching awoke Little Yi, who was very much amused to see Nelly putting on her Chinese dress.
'But her hair won't do,' said Yi.
'No,' replied An Ching, 'we must see to that.'
Poor Nelly! She had to swallow very hard to keep back the tears. What did they mean to do with her?
She soon found out, however, when they had all taken some Chinese porridge in Ku Nai-nai's room, and wiped their faces and hands with wet towels. Ku Nai-nai told her that she was to have her head shaved in front and the back dressed in a tail like Little Yi's.
Nelly begged and protested and cried in vain. An Ching told her that it was of no use to cry, and that if she made any trouble or noise she would be whipped, but if she were good and quiet no one would be unkind to her.
A Chinese barber arrived, and poor Nelly was obliged to submit to having her front hair cut away and a small portion of her head shaved. Nelly's hair was dark, though not black, like a Chinese child's. They all said she looked very nice, and the boy grinned from ear to ear. Nelly would have liked to slap him. The barber seemed very well satisfied with his work and the pay he received. Ku Nai-nai threatened him with all sorts of revenge if he breathed a word of what he had done, and told him that if he kept quiet they would perhaps employ him to take Nelly back to her parents.