Have you ever tried to pick a water-lily from the shore? If so, you know what a tantalizing task it is. Near by, apparently, you see just the perfect one you want. You reach out longing hands and come no nearer, seemingly. You get a firmer foothold on the bank, a good left-hand grip on the branch that bends so lovingly over the water, and your own body bends in a deeper curve. Regardless of wet skirts and slipping feet, you bend yet further, and just reach the tip of the nearest petal. This will never do. There is no stone beyond the mossy one where you stand. But when you get a log and perch on the end of it you find, stretch as you inay, the lily is still just beyond your reach. It is rather exciting, for one does not relish the thought of tumbling into that dark water, cool and fresh as it looks. One has heard of black snakes and unknown horrors below.

But determination has marked us for victims, and from a neighboring field we get more logs, with whose aid we capture our lily, pulling up yards of long elastic stem. Several of its sisters and a handful of the floating green leaves follow. How beautifully veined in pink they are on the under side! One thing after another attracts our attention. As we approach, a black snake, com

fortably taking his sun bath on the bank, glides into the water. You hear "plunk," "plunk "-and see Mr. Frog disappearing. Then a fat, unwieldy turtle tumbles in, and under almost every stick, just beneath the water, you can find baby turtles where they swim and play about.

Occasionally one finds the pink water-lily, and there are many other varieties in this country, but none is lovelier than our white, sweet-scented first love. Her sister, the lotus, or rose-lily of the Nile, has for centuries been the adoration of millions in Egypt, India, China, and Japan. It is Buddha's symbol. He is believed to have first appeared floating on that mystic flower. Brahma, too, is supposed to have come forth from its centre-the Nelumbo Nelumbo. It has fewer petals than the lily, and its leaves stand often a foot or more above the water, instead of floating, as do those of our lily. The flowers, too, grow higher. Where our lily so often has cattails on the bank the lotus has the papyrus grass, long feathery heads six feet high, waving in the wind. Happily they have naturalized the lotus here, so we can enjoy it in our ponds.

The lily is the same to-day as it was centuries ago, and yet how much more it has to

say to us than to our grandparents. Year after year Nature patiently unfurls the same things in the same way, but only after centuries have we learned the why and wherefore. We know now, thanks to Darwin, how much the flowers depend on insects to carry their pollen from one to another and crossfertilize them. Much of their beauty and fragrance is to attract the right insects; even the getting up and going to bed depend on them. Almost every flower has certain insects upon which its future depends. They feed on the nectar and carry away the pollen. Sometime after 6 A.M. our lily opens and spreads its many-petalled fragrant golden centre to welcome late-flying bees and flowerflies. Skippers, beetles, and many flying insects alight too. In spite of whiteness and fragrance, it does not require any help from night-flying insects, so when bees and flies rest at sundown from their labor it closes its blinds, business being ended for the day. Beginning early in June, the lilies bloom until late in August or possibly into September. When winter sets in they sink to the bottom, where the water is warmest.

Any one can with little trouble make an aquatic garden. Sink a tub or half-barrel in the ground; spread good rich loam or soil,

to a depth of eight inches. Then get waterlily roots as early in the spring as possible, and barely cover them with the soil. Fill to the top with water and replenish from time to time as it evaporates. It is so simple and they bloom so freely, that they are a constant joy. No other attention is needed till autumn, when the tub should be drained and removed to a cellar, covering it with a mattress or leaves to keep the roots from freezing. Of course by building a tank, cementing, draining, etc., you can have to all appearances a pond in your lawn, but be sure to place it where it will have the sun for the greater portion of the day. A few goldfish and some of the common spotted sunfish will destroy all the larvæ of aquatic insects. One great charm of a lily pond is that it brings all the birds from far and near for their drinking-fountain and bath. Besides the joy of having them, they prove a blessing in the number of insects they destroy. Thoreau has called a pond the earth's eye, for all things are reflected in it, from the soft rich green of the foliage to the fleecy clouds and cerulean blues of the sky. What landscape whose charm is not enhanced by a bit of water with its changing life and shadows, especially sunset glows?

a queue, and in the other a perpetual smile. He arrived at what time it pleased him in the morning and departed when the spirit seemed to move him in the afternoon. In Japan I have found him squatting outside my door when I opened it to go to breakfast, and no one could say how many hours he had been waiting there.

In China I have waited until ten o'clock for him, and sometimes have not found him at all, although, as a rule, the Celestial with his pigtail keeps his appointments with greater punctuality than his smiling cousin, the Japanese.

Wherever or whenever I did possess myself of him I found him the same impersonal, impassive, irresponsible creature; impervious to fault-finding, unresponsive to praise, and industriously doing what he supposed he had been set to do.

He faithfully worked his allotted timeaccording to his allotment, not mine, in most

cases-and copied things so exactly, so painfully, and so ludicrously in many instances, that I learned to be very careful what I showed him and to be most particular when giving directions for work, for it was not pleasant to find patches and darns and extra seams on new garments, simply because there were some on my old ones.

The literalness of the Oriental is beyond explanation. He can sew beautifully,—that is to say, he knows how to stitch, backstitch, hem, gather, and fell far better than the majority of Europeans, but he has no idea of dressmaking, even the best of him, in the true sense of the word.

He cannot reason from cause to effect; the gray matter in his brain must convolute from the interior outward, or in some other than the usual European way, for he never by any chance seems to get the usual impression. One would almost think an idea changed color, complexion, and consistency while on its way from an Occidental brain to an Oriental one, so different are its results upon the two kinds of gray matter.

results follow given conditions as surely as

The Chinaman can never learn that certain

the night the day, and seems always to expect that they will not. If told to undo all that he has spent a day in doing, he makes no protest, but sets himself to rip as he has sewed, imperturbably and uncomplainingly;

66 NUMBER ONE NAVAL OFFICER HE TAKEE MY."

it is your time, not his, that is being wasted, and it is no concern of this particular John Chinaman.

The tailors in Yokohama, Shanghai, and Hongkong make serge and duck suits for both men and women fairly well and for half the price that one pays in England or America.

The reason of this is that the material, when imported, is free of duty, and the Chinaman knows how to get the most out of his fellow countrymen much better than foreigners; besides, they work for him cheaper than they do for Europeans.

One learns to be cautious in buying these suits, though, for the lines are not quite right; the effect is never exactly what is desired, though one cannot always say what is wrong. They lack style, and style is an intangible and inexplicable thing that refuses to be put into words, but which must be put into clothes if they are to mark the welldressed man or woman.

My Japanese dressmaker that came to the house wore a long blue cotton kimono, and wooden clogs that he slipped off his feet at the door of my room. He brought with him the clumsiest pair of shears and a little hand sewing-machine that was an undoubted patriarch among machines. He rested in a chair, but squatted with his feet under him, set the machine in another in front of him, and seemed happiest and least concerned with the things of this life when he was grinding VOL. XXXVIII.-49

the machine with one hand, guiding the work with the other, while his prehensile toes kept the long breadths of skirt from the floor. Perhaps the beatific condition came with the Buddhistic attitude. Who knows?

He wore a curious sort of a thimble that was not much larger than a ring on the inside of the middle finger between the first and second joints, and pushed his needle straight out from him, at an angle directly opposite to ours when we sew.

He spoke very seldom, almost never asking a question, but worked steadily at something, somehow, if not directed otherwise. He never seemed surprised when told that his calculations were all wrong, and invariably answered, "Can do," when told that I wished a thing altered.

I often wondered what sort of a garment he Iwould have turned out had he worked for some one who had no idea how clothes should be put together. It would have been fearful and wonderful to behold, I am convinced, for by himself he could never master the intricacies of a paper pattern, with its perforations and notches. I did not blame him so much for that, either, for I find it a good deal of a problem myself-sometimes.

He listened intently to all my directions, and seemed to understand, but that guileless smile often deceived me, for I frequently discovered later that he had scarcely comprehended a word. Taking him all and all, he was

came and went their several ways. He had a slim, aristocratic face, that one never sees among the Cantonese coolies that come to this country, with a skin the color of a choice bit of old ivory. He was young and had beautiful teeth. His hands were as small and delicate as those of most women, with the inordinately long nails that proved his caste to be above that of those who do menial or manual labor. He was proud of these nails and often took pains to display them.

OF HIGH CASTE.

He arrived at eight o'clock promptly, and sewed diligently until twelve, only looking up now and again to ask in a not unmusical voice, "How fashion you likee this, mississey?"

At the stroke of twelve he laid down his half finished buttonhole and announced, "My go chow now," chow being the Chinese word for tea and food. At 12.15 he returned, and worked steadfastly until 4.15, when, like the Arab, he folded his tent and silently stole away. The first day he slipped out unnoticed, and I waited some time, expecting him to return, before I concluded he had gone for the day. The following day I watched him and saw him methodically put away his work and utensils, each separate article in its place.

Wishing to consult him one day when he was absent, I fared forth into the Chinese quarter in quest of him, but for a long time was unsuccessful, as no Chinaman will give away another's abiding - place, as it was thought that he was hiding from me; but when at last I had made it plain that there was nothing wrong, I was led through devious winding ways which eventually landed me in a cellar. Here I found my young man working in a tailor shop. By dint of much questioning I discovered that he worked for me eight hours, then, with a short interval for "chow," he went to this shop and worked eight hours more, giving what remained of the twenty-four to sleep.

He owned up to smoking opium one day, when I accused him of it, and smiled, "childlike and bland," when I endeavored to tell

him how injurious the practice was. It was the sort of smile that makes you feel most insignificant; it was so superior, so polite, and withal so unbelieving. He waited courteously for me to say my say, but the look on his face was maddening. He knew he knew all about it; there was nothing I could tell him. Hadn't he smoked for years and didn't he know that he never could earn double wages if he had not the help opium gave him, etc.? He had a curious sense of humor that cropped out in various ways. One day he carried off material for half a dozen pieces of underwear to make up at home, working betweentimes. When he returned the finished garments he created as much excitement along the road as an unexpected circus would have done.

Each piece was stretched out in perfect shape and held in place by a bamboo sapling; the six were then strung on a longer pole which he carried over his shoulder; occasionally the breeze would fill them so that he who ran, even though a mile away, could read their purpose. My feelings, as I viewed this touching sight, were, indeed, too deep for words.

When afternoon tea was over, or I had had meals served in my room, I frequently offered him food, but he scorned everything except bread or rolls; he seemed never to tire of them, and could not be cajoled with a piece of cake or other pastry.

He was unique, this Oriental dressmaker of mine; among the half-dozen that came and went and faithfully stitched, he stands out in high relief beyond them all. He was preternaturally serious and solemn-looking, and yet I made him laugh once, and felt as proud as Punch over it.