dance and sing; they become accomplished artists and musicians. They dress with exceptional taste; they move with exceeding grace; they are delicate in appearance, very frail and very human, very tender, sympathetic, and imaginative. By their artistic and intellectual endowment, the dancing girls, ironically enough, are debarred from the positions for which their talents so peculiarly fit them. They may move through, and as a fact do live in, the highest society. They are met at the houses of the most distinguished; they may be selected as the concubines of the Emperor, become the femmes d'amour of a prince, the puppets of the noble. A man of breeding may not marry them, however, although they typify everything that is brightest, liveliest, and most beautiful. Amongst their own sex, their reputation is in accordance with their standard of morality, a distinction being made between those whose careers are embellished with the quasi chastity of a concubine, and those who are identified with the more pretentious display of the mere prostitute.
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A PALACE CONCUBINE
In the hope that their children may achieve that success which will ensure their support in their old age, parents,
