Our young people gladly availed themselves of the courtesy extended to them and after walking a short distance through a shady wood they came to the bank of a gleaming blue lake whose rippling waters flashed back the sparkling sunbeams, and on whose surface floated unique and dainty pleasure-boats. Into one of these they stepped and soon were sailing quietly along, enjoying both the refreshing breezes and the beauty of the scene. The shore line was dotted with villas which looked like fairy-palaces, so exquisite were they in coloring and design, while back of them rose purple-hued hills, a most effective background. While they sailed our young people told their new friends something of themselves and their experiences while traveling in space. All was listened to with intense interest. When they had finished telling about the magic power of their wishing-robes, their entertainers asked if they would mind exhibiting themselves in their native costumes.
“Certainly not,” said Ione, “we would be delighted to do so, but our garments will seem strange and perhaps even ridiculous to you. If they do, you may laugh as much as ever you like for I assure you we will not be offended in the least.”
“One, two, three. Presto change,” said Harold, and there stood four oddly attired people looking unlike anything their Venus friends had ever seen or dreamed of. They might have been mistaken for figures of wax shown in a museum but that Ione laughed outright when she saw the wide-open eyes and astonished expressions on the faces of their friends.
“Well, how do you like our native garments?” she asked. “You know that the Prince and the Princess live on one continent of the Earth, while Harold and I live on another and that accounts for the differences in our style of dress.”
“Which style do you prefer?” asked the Princess of the beautiful little lady from Venus.
“Oh, yours,” she replied. “Your attire is much more artistic and natural than the other more sombre garb. Your white blouse, blue velvet jacket embroidered with gold, soft silken sash, golden anklets, and slippers turned up at the toes, all are harmonious and beautiful I think, while the white turban of the Prince and his white skirts held in place by that knotted sash, and the dagger at his side, all are more to my taste than those queer-looking narrow bags which you (turning to Harold) wear, and which you call trousers or than that high, stiff starched garment you call a shirt. How you can breathe one minute in it is more than I can tell, while I should think the collar would saw your ears off.”
At this they all laughed for they could well understand how funny and absurd their costumes must look to any one used only to loose robes and soft, clinging draperies. As for Ione, the Islanders wondered why she did not break in two, locked in her steel girdle as they called her corsets. And her French-heeled shoes! They were the limit of absurdity and how she managed to walk and not fall on her nose at every step she took was more than they could understand. The planet people had a great deal of fun over each separate garment and seemed to enjoy inspecting them so much that our young friends decided to give them a surprise and at the same time to show them sights which no native of Venus, alive or dead, had ever before witnessed. They were told to look overhead and there soon appeared reproduced there, panorama-like, the different peoples of the earth. In this way could be seen the native costumes of all Earth people from the Chinaman to the fashionable French woman.
The Venusians clapped their hands with delight as the different views passed before them for they had not known that there were people who looked or dressed so unlike themselves.
On their way to the Villa where they were to take tea, the Venusians asked our friends if they would not like to walk through the garden where their little cupid babies slept, while they looked to see that they were all tucked in their flower-beds warm and safe for the night. “Over each baby a white pigeon keeps watch so that if anything is wanted or if they cry out, the bird flies to our window, taps, and we immediately come to see what is needed.”
“Oh, may we have just one peep?” cried the girls, as they leaned over a large white rose in which was curled up fast asleep a tiny little cupid with light, curly hair.