young lady's head. She felt the rustle of the dried rose-leaves at the bottom of the jar falling over her in a fragrant shower, as she fell through space, pulling up, decidedly out of breath, in a very queer locality.
It was a town where the houses looked as if they had been built for big dolls to live in. Houses with sliding walls, doors, and galleries made all of paper, that in two minutes you could take apart and pack up as you do a box of Crandall's blocks. The streets were honeycombed with quaint booths, and crowded with human beings going in and out of them like bees. The carriages were babies' perambulators, drawn by a tandem team of brown-skinned men, wearing a single garment each, and umbrella hats.
There were no horses to be seen, but the cows wore blue cotton wrappers and shoes made of straw. Men, women, and children, at first sight, seemed to be dressed alike, all clattering around on high clogs, stooping painfully; and the funny little bald-headed babies were either carried pick-a-back by their mammas, or else were tucked in the breast of their fathers' loose wrappers, together with pipes, tobacco pouches, books, and a variety of other useful articles.
Rosy looked about her in astonishment, till a girl came up and saluted her with solemn politeness, inviting her to a party, which was just about to begin. "You had better have your hair dressed first," the girl said, "and I will lend you a decent frock."
"Very well," said Rosy, thinking fondly of the blue camel's-hair in the wardrobe at home; "of course, this old every-day serge won't do for a party."
The girl took her to the shop of a female barber, who made Rosy kneel down before a mirror of polished steel, and parted her hair in two or three long manes, which were stiffened with bandoline, and tied with
paper twine in a wonderful bow-knot on top. A fine tortoise-shell skewer was added, and the barberess, stepping back to survey her work, caught sight of Rosy's eyebrows.
"Tut, tut," she said, angrily; "what were her parents thinking of to let them grow like this?" And without more ado Rosy's eyebrows were shaved off, and her face and neck were daubed with a thick white paste. Her under lip had a patch of red paint, and her teeth were stained with some horrid black mixture. Then she went with the Japanese girl into a paper house, where the party was to be held, and the girl lent her a loose silk gown, tied round the waist by a wide sash of pink crêpe. On her feet were put foot mittens of white cloth, with a separate place for the big toe, and high lacquered clogs.