The ceremony of breakfast is over, and I am sorry again you cannot all share in these daily festivals which add so much to the dignity of living. We are now studying Japanese with the aid of the maids. I missed going to the Dolls’ Festival at a private kindergarten and the result—this morning by mail a postcard from the children with numerous presents made by them, all dolls, and those I will send home, as they are interesting. With the presents they say: “We made cakes and prepared for your coming and we were in the depths of despair when you did not come. Please come another time.” I am sure there is no other country in the world like this. The language is an impossible one. The way given in the phrases of the guide book is the way the man speaks. So when I stammer off those phrases the girls are literally tickled to death. When they tell me what I ought to say in the more elaborated polite way of the women, then I am floored. It is all an amusing game and relieves the watch they keep on each bite we take so as to be ready to supply more. Everything they do is marked with the kindliest attitude and every act or move is one of friendship.

This is the program for to-day: Go to lunch at the house of some missionaries, then to father’s lecture at 3:30, then to dinner for University of Chicago students. To-morrow will be an open day for me and the little secretary will take me shopping. The big department store is the fashionable place where all the noble and rich buy their kimonos, and I may supplement my secondhand attempts with a new one. When I get to Kyoto I hope to find a real old one, as the new style of weave are infected with foreign influence. The other evening with Y—— we found a little shop for antiques which is a gem to look at. An old man and his wife, Y—— says he bets they are Samurai, with the politeness of real nobles, and their little place as carefully arranged for beauty as if it were their home—which it is. I broke an old Kutani plate and I inquired for one there. They had none, but we looked at their things, they with many bows, and when we left said we were sorry to have troubled them for nothing. They replied, “Please excuse us for not having the thing you wanted.”

To-morrow we go to lunch here in the neighborhood with a very clever and interesting family (of a professor). None of the women call, at least none of the married ones, all being afraid of their English for one reason, but I am learning to just take things as they come and not to bother over formalities, never knowing whether that is the best way or not. The wedding of last Tuesday was the most interesting function I have seen. The marriage ceremony was the Christian one. The company represented the rich and fashionable of the city. The ladies all wear black crepe kimonos, that splendid crepe which is so heavy, next under the black is an all white of soft china silk, then the third of bright color. K——’s was that bright vermilion red. Her sleeves were not very long, as she is a mother, but the young girls wear bright colored kimonos and long sleeves that almost touch the floor. The bride wears black, too. All these dress-up kimonos have decorations in color, sometimes embroidered and sometimes dyed on the lower points of the front. The bride’s was spread out on the floor around her just like the old pictures, embroidered in heavy rose peonies, her undergarment and the lining of the black, in rose color. Her hair was done in the old conventional way shown in the prints with the long pins of light tortoise shell with bouquets of tiny flowers carved at the ends, which stuck out about three inches, making a crown over her head. The receiving party is as follows: First, father of groom; second, mother of bride; third, groom; fourth, bride; fifth, father of bride; sixth, mother of groom. The line is straight and the bride is perfectly arranged like an old print, she and the groom with their eyes cast down. As each person passes, they make bows all along the line at once, but they do not move hand or eyes or a fold of these perfect clothes. I forgot to say the men, unfortunately, wear European dress. Then we moved on to two large rooms, the men all seated and smoking in one, and the women in the other. Those who knew me were very kind. Countess H—— introduced me to the bridesmaids; at least they would be the maids at home. They were the sisters and young relatives all dressed in the most brilliant kimonos and embroidered and decorated to the limit; they looked like all the parrots and peacocks and paradise and blue birds and every lovely color imaginable, while the uniform black of the guests, decorated with the pure white of their crests which stand out in such a group, formed the perfect background, free from all the messiness which is so apparent in a diversified gathering of all sorts of color and shape and materials in our land. At tea, which was very elaborate and taken sitting at the tables, the family of the two filled one table, a long one at the end of the room. The bride now wore a green kimono, equally brilliant; about two feet away from her sat the groom, both in the middle of the long table.