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Girl babies, like their little brothers, are shaved at the end of the first month, but with less ceremony. They are called Water Fairy, Slave Girl, Likes to Cry, Golden Needle, or some such name. Though some of the little ones suffer from neglect and hardship, many of them are happy in their babyhood. The people say, “Children are one’s very flesh, life, heart,” and when the traveller sees a father or a mother proudly carrying one of them about, or patiently bearing with its naughtiness, he can well believe that they mean what they say. Sometimes a mother pretends to bite her baby, saying, “Good to eat, good to eat”; sometimes she presses her nose against its tender cheek, as if smelling it, and kisses it again and again. The little things have shining black eyes, with long dark lashes which look so nice against the faint olive tint of the delicate skin.

When Master Tiny is a year old, another feast is made, and brightly-coloured shoes and hats are given to him. After the feast is over the little fellow is put on a table in the room where the ancestors of the family are worshipped. Round him are placed various things, such as a pen, a string of cash, a mandarin’s button, etc. Then everyone waits to see which he will stretch out a fat hand to seize, for it is supposed that the thing which he chooses will show what he is going to be or to do in the world, by and by. If baby grabs the pen, he will be a scholar; if the money takes his fancy, he will go into business; but if his eager fingers grasp the shining mandarin button, his father and mother hopefully believe that he will be a great man some day.