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312 to keep her face hidden as far as possible from the public gaze. Timid to the last degree she seems, and probably is, and she looks neither to the right nor the left, but keeps her eyes fixed on the plank beneath her, as if anxious to avoid the sight of everything else in the world. As she stands there in the open gangway, she looks the perfect counterpart of something we have seen, or dreamed of, before. Ah, yes; we remember now! Thirty years ago—fifteen or sixteen years before this little thing was born—our big cousin came home from a sailing voyage round the world, and among the curious things he brought with him was a book of rice-paper, white as snow and soft as velvet, each leaf of which bore a single, wonderfully elaborate little picture, in colors more brilliant than the rainbow; her picture, correct and perfect in the most minute detail, was there; no one could fail to recognize it at a glance. She is the bride of an opulent Chinese merchant of San Francisco, who has been home to get her; his parents selected her for him from one of the most respectable families in the Central Flowery Empire, and he had no trouble with courting: and such like Caucasian nonsense. He leads her down the plank, the bracelets and bangles of silver and green semi-transparent stone which encircle her wrists and ankles, clinking musically as she walks; and at the wharf a policeman, detailed for the purpose, receives and escorts the party through the crowd, which opens respectfully before the end of his club, and they enter a carriage. Another and another come down the plank; the last two are