“Her servants came running to answer her summons. She bade them dress her in the most beautiful and luxurious garments. At once a dozen maids waited on her. One brushed her glossy hair; dressed it in the most becoming mode, placed long, golden daggers and pins with sparkling stones glistening in them, and on either side of her ears set precious kanzashi. Another manicured, perfumed, and massaged her little hands. Still another softly kneaded her face until the blood sprang to the surface, and made it more beautiful than any paint could do. Then they robed her in a rosy gown—one fit only for a princess—as perhaps she was.”
He paused here, and the impatient children prompted him.
“Well—well?”
“What did she do then?”
“She was carried from the house and gently lifted into a gorgeous norimono.”
“A norimono!” cried Billy. “What’s a norimono?”
“Why—a little—something they used before jinrikishas.”
“But did not this all happen recently?” It was Marion’s question.
“Yes, that’s so,” admitted the romancer. “Now that I think of it, what she did was to walk down to her gate and allow them to lift her into the jinrikisha. That’s where the ‘lifting’ comes in.”
“Then where did she go?”