Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book II

This response elicited no comment from dowager lady Chia. Chia Chen therefore withdrew downstairs, and betook himself outside to make arrangements for the offerings to the gods, for the paper money and eatables that had to be burnt, and for the theatricals about to begin. So we will leave him without any further allusion, and take up our narrative with Pao-yü.

Seating himself upstairs next to old lady Chia, he called to a servant-girl to fetch the tray of presents given to him a short while back, and putting on his own trinket of jade, he fumbled about with the things for a bit, and picking up one by one, he handed them to his grandmother to admire. But old lady Chia espied among them a unicorn, made of purplish gold, with kingfisher feathers inserted, and eagerly extending her arm, she took it up. "This object," she smiled, "seems to me to resemble very much one I've seen worn also by the young lady of some household or other of ours."

"Senior cousin, Shih Hsiang-yün," chimed in Pao-ch'ai, a smile playing on her lips, "has one, but it's a trifle smaller than this."

"Is it indeed Yün-erh who has it?" exclaimed old lady Chia.

"Now that she lives in our house," remarked Pao-yü, "how is it that even
I haven't seen anything of it?"

"Cousin Pao-ch'ai," rejoined T'an Ch'un laughingly, "has the power of observation; no matter what she sees, she remembers."

Lin Tai-yü gave a sardonic smile. "As far as other matters are concerned," she insinuated, "her observation isn't worth speaking of; where she's extra-observant is in articles people may wear about their persons."

Pao-chai, upon catching this sneering remark, at once turned her head round, and pretended she had not heard. But as soon as Pao-yü learnt that Shih Hsiang-yün possessed a similar trinket, he speedily picked up the unicorn, and hid it in his breast, indulging, at the same time, in further reflection. Yet, fearing lest people might have noticed that he kept back that particular thing the moment he discovered that Shih Hsiang-yün had one identical with it, he fixed his eyes intently upon all around while clutching it. He found however that not one of them was paying any heed to his movements except Lin Tai-yü, who, while gazing at him was, nodding her head, as if with the idea of expressing her admiration. Pao-yü, therefore, at once felt inwardly ill at ease, and pulling out his hand, he observed, addressing himself to Tai-yü with an assumed smile, "This is really a fine thing to play with; I'll keep it for you, and when we get back home, I'll pass a ribbon through it for you to wear." "I don't care about it," said Lin Tai-yü, giving her head a sudden twist.

"Well," continued Pao-yü laughingly, "if you don't like it, I can't do otherwise than keep it myself."

Saying this, he once again thrust it away. But just as he was about to open his lips to make some other observation, he saw Mrs. Yu, the spouse of Chia Chen, arrive along with the second wife recently married by Chia Jung, that is, his mother and her daughter-in-law, to pay their obeisance to dowager lady Chia.

"What do you people rush over here for again?" old lady Chia inquired.

"I came here for a turn, simply because I had nothing to do."

But no sooner was this inquiry concluded than they heard a messenger announce: "that some one had come from the house of general Feng."

The family of Feng Tzu-ying had, it must be explained, come to learn the news that the inmates of the Chia mansion were offering a thanksgiving service in the temple, and, without loss of time, they got together presents of pigs, sheep, candles, tea and eatables and sent them over. The moment lady Feng heard about it she hastily crossed to the main part of the two-storied building. "Ai-ya;" she ejaculated, clapping her hands and laughing. "I never expected anything of the sort; we merely said that we ladies were coming for a leisurely stroll and people imagined that we were spreading a sumptuous altar with lenten viands and came to bring us offerings! But it's all our old lady's fault for bruiting it about! Why, we haven't even got any slips of paper with tips ready."

She had just finished speaking, when she perceived two matrons, who acted as house-keepers in the Feng family, walk upstairs. But before the Feng servants could take their leave, presents likewise arrived, in quick succession, from Chao, the Vice-President of the Board. In due course, one lot of visitors followed another. For as every one got wind of the fact that the Chia family was having thanksgiving services, and that the ladies were in the temple, distant and close relatives, friends, old friends and acquaintances all came to present their contributions. So much so, that dowager lady Chia began at this juncture to feel sorry that she had ever let the cat out of the bag. "This is no regular fasting," she said, "we simply have come for a little change; and we should not have put any one to any inconvenience!" Although therefore she was to have remained present all day at the theatrical performance, she promptly returned home soon after noon, and the next day she felt very loth to go out of doors again.

"By striking the wall, we've also stirred up dust," lady Feng argued. "Why we've already put those people to the trouble so we should only be too glad to-day to have another outing."

But as when dowager lady Chia interviewed the Taoist Chang, the previous day, he made allusion to Pao-yü and canvassed his engagement, Pao-yü experienced, little as one would have thought it, much secret displeasure during the whole of that day, and on his return home he flew into a rage and abused Chang, the rationalistic priest, for harbouring designs to try and settle a match for him. At every breath and at every word he resolved that henceforward he would not set eyes again upon the Taoist Chang. But no one but himself had any idea of the reason that actuated him to absent himself. In the next place, Lin Tai-yü began also, on her return the day before, to ail from a touch of the sun, so their grandmother was induced by these two considerations to remain firm in her decision not to go. When lady Feng, however, found that she would not join them, she herself took charge of the family party and set out on the excursion.

But without descending to particulars, let us advert to Pao-yü. Seeing that Lin Tai-yü had fallen ill, he was so full of solicitude on her account that he even had little thought for any of his meals, and not long elapsed before he came to inquire how she was.

Tai-yü, on her part, gave way to fear lest anything should happen to him, (and she tried to re-assure him). "Just go and look at the plays," she therefore replied, "what's the use of boxing yourself up at home?"

Pao-yü was, however, not in a very happy frame of mind on account of the reference to his marriage made by Chang, the Taoist, the day before, so when he heard Lin Tai-yü's utterances: "If others don't understand me;" he mused, "it's anyhow excusable; but has she too begun to make fun of me?" His heart smarted in consequence under the sting of a mortification a hundred times keener than he had experienced up to that occasion. Had he been with any one else, it would have been utterly impossible for her to have brought into play feelings of such resentment, but as it was no other than Tai-yü who spoke the words, the impression produced upon him was indeed different from that left in days gone by, when others employed similar language. Unable to curb his feelings, he instantaneously lowered his face. "My friendship with you has been of no avail" he rejoined. "But, never mind, patience!"

This insinuation induced Lin Tai-yü to smile a couple of sarcastic smiles. "Yes, your friendship with me has been of no avail," she repeated; "for how can I compare with those whose manifold qualities make them fit matches for you?"

As soon as this sneer fell on Pao-yü's ear he drew near to her. "Are you by telling me this," he asked straight to her face, "deliberately bent upon invoking imprecations upon me that I should be annihilated by heaven and extinguished by earth?"

Lin Tai-yü could not for a time fathom the import of his remarks. "It was," Pao-yü then resumed, "on account of this very conversation that I yesterday swore several oaths, and now would you really make me repeat another one? But were the heavens to annihilate me and the earth to extinguish me, what benefit would you derive?"

This rejoinder reminded Tai-yü of the drift of their conversation on the previous day. And as indeed she had on this occasion framed in words those sentiments, which should not have dropped from her lips, she experienced both annoyance and shame, and she tremulously observed: "If I entertain any deliberate intention to bring any harm upon you, may I too be destroyed by heaven and exterminated by earth! But what's the use of all this! I know very well that the allusion to marriage made yesterday by Chang, the Taoist, fills you with dread lest he might interfere with your choice. You are inwardly so irate that you come and treat me as your malignant influence."

Pao-yü, the fact is, had ever since his youth developed a peculiar kind of mean and silly propensity. Having moreover from tender infancy grown up side by side with Tai-Yü, their hearts and their feelings were in perfect harmony. More, he had recently come to know to a great extent what was what, and had also filled his head with the contents of a number of corrupt books and licentious stories. Of all the eminent and beautiful girls that he had met too in the families of either distant or close relatives or of friends, not one could reach the standard of Lin Tai-yü. Hence it was that he commenced, from an early period of his life, to foster sentiments of love for her; but as he could not very well give utterance to them, he felt time and again sometimes elated, sometimes vexed, and wont to exhaust every means to secretly subject her heart to a test.

Lin Tai-yü happened, on the other hand, to possess in like manner a somewhat silly disposition; and she too frequently had recourse to feigned sentiments to feel her way. And as she began to conceal her true feelings and inclinations and to simply dissimulate, and he to conceal his true sentiments and wishes and to dissemble, the two unrealities thus blending together constituted eventually one reality. But it was hardly to be expected that trifles would not be the cause of tiffs between them. Thus it was that in Pao-yü's mind at this time prevailed the reflection: "that were others unable to read my feelings, it would anyhow be excusable; but is it likely that you cannot realise that in my heart and in my eyes there is no one else besides yourself. But as you were not able to do anything to dispel my annoyance, but made use, instead, of the language you did to laugh at me, and to gag my mouth, it's evident that though you hold, at every second and at every moment, a place in my heart, I don't, in fact, occupy a place in yours." Such was the construction attached to her conduct by Pao-yü, yet he did not have the courage to tax her with it.

"If, really, I hold a place in your heart," Lin Tai-yü again reflected, "why do you, albeit what's said about gold and jade being a fit match, attach more importance to this perverse report and think nothing of what I say? Did you, when I so often broach the subject of this gold and jade, behave as if you, verily, had never heard anything about it, I would then have seen that you treat me with preference and that you don't harbour the least particle of a secret design. But how is it that the moment I allude to the topic of gold and jade, you at once lose all patience? This is proof enough that you are continuously pondering over that gold and jade, and that as soon as you hear me speak to you about them, you apprehend that I shall once more give way to conjectures, and intentionally pretend to be quite out of temper, with the deliberate idea of cajoling me!"

These two cousins had, to all appearances, once been of one and the same mind, but the many issues, which had sprung up between them, brought about a contrary result and made them of two distinct minds.

"I don't care what you do, everything is well," Pao-yü further argued, "so long as you act up to your feelings; and if you do, I shall be ever only too willing to even suffer immediate death for your sake. Whether you know this or not, doesn't matter; it's all the same. Yet were you to just do as my heart would have you, you'll afford me a clear proof that you and I are united by close ties and that you are no stranger to me!"

"Just you mind your own business," Lin Tai-yü on her side cogitated. "If you will treat me well, I'll treat you well. And what need is there to put an end to yourself for my sake? Are you not aware that if you kill yourself, I'll also kill myself? But this demonstrates that you don't wish me to be near to you, and that you really want that I should be distant to you."

It will thus be seen that the desire, by which they were both actuated, to strive and draw each other close and ever closer became contrariwise transformed into a wish to become more distant. But as it is no easy task to frame into words the manifold secret thoughts entertained by either, we will now confine ourselves to a consideration of their external manner.

The three words "a fine match," which Pao-yü heard again Lin Tai-yü pronounce proved so revolting to him that his heart got full of disgust and he was unable to give utterance to a single syllable. Losing all control over his temper, he snatched from his neck the jade of Spiritual Perception and, clenching his teeth, he spitefully dashed it down on the floor. "What rubbishy trash!" he cried. "I'll smash you to atoms and put an end to the whole question!"

The jade, however, happened to be of extraordinary hardness, and did not, after all, sustain the slightest injury from this single fall. When Pao-yü realised that it had not broken, he forthwith turned himself round to get the trinket with the idea of carrying out his design of smashing it, but Tai-yü divined his intention, and soon started crying. "What's the use of all this!" she demurred, "and why, pray, do you batter that dumb thing about? Instead of smashing it, wouldn't it be better for you to come and smash me!"

But in the middle of their dispute, Tzu Chüan, Hsüeh Yen and the other maids promptly interfered and quieted them. Subsequently, however, they saw how deliberately bent Pao-yü was upon breaking the jade, and they vehemently rushed up to him to snatch it from his hands. But they failed in their endeavours, and perceiving that he was getting more troublesome than he had ever been before, they had no alternative but to go and call Hsi Jen. Hsi Jen lost no time in running over and succeeded, at length, in getting hold of the trinket.

"I'm smashing what belongs to me," remarked Pao-yü with a cynical smile, "and what has that to do with you people?"

Hsi Jen noticed that his face had grown quite sallow from anger, that his eyes had assumed a totally unusual expression, and that he had never hitherto had such a fit of ill-temper and she hastened to take his hand in hers and to smilingly expostulate with him. "If you've had a tiff with your cousin," she said, "it isn't worth while flinging this down! Had you broken it, how would her heart and face have been able to bear the mortification?"

Lin Tai-yü shed tears and listened the while to her remonstrances. Yet these words, which so corresponded with her own feelings, made it clear to her that Pao-yü could not even compare with Hsi Jen and wounded her heart so much more to the quick that she began to weep aloud. But the moment she got so vexed she found it hard to keep down the potion of boletus and the decoction, for counter-acting the effects of the sun, she had taken only a few minutes back, and with a retch she brought everything up. Tzu Chüan immediately pressed to her side and used her handkerchief to stop her mouth with. But mouthful succeeded mouthful, and in no time the handkerchief was soaked through and through.

Hsüeh Yen then approached in a hurry and tapped her on the back.

"You may, of course, give way to displeasure," Tzu Chüan argued; "but you should, after all, take good care of yourself Miss. You had just taken the medicines and felt the better for them; and here you now begin vomitting again; and all because you've had a few words with our master Secundus. But should your complaint break out afresh how will Mr. Pao bear the blow?"

The moment Pao-yü caught this advice, which accorded so thoroughly with his own ideas, he found how little Tai-yü could hold her own with Tzu Chüan. And perceiving how flushed Tai-yü's face was, how her temples were swollen, how, while sobbing, she panted; and how, while crying, she was suffused with perspiration, and betrayed signs of extreme weakness, he began, at the sight of her condition, to reproach himself. "I shouldn't," he reflected, "have bandied words with her; for now that she's got into this frame of mind, I mayn't even suffer in her stead!"

The self-reproaches, however, which gnawed his heart made it impossible for him to refrain from tears, much as he fought against them. Hsi Jen saw them both crying, and while attending to Pao-yü, she too unavoidably experienced much soreness of heart. She nevertheless went on rubbing Pao-yü's hands, which were icy cold. She felt inclined to advise Pao-yü not to weep, but fearing again lest, in the first place, Pao-yü might be inwardly aggrieved, and nervous, in the next, lest she should not be dealing rightly by Tai-yü, she thought it advisable that they should all have a good cry, as they might then be able to leave off. She herself therefore also melted into tears. As for Tzu-Chüan, at one time, she cleaned the expectorated medicine; at another, she took up a fan and gently fanned Tai-yü. But at the sight of the trio plunged in perfect silence, and of one and all sobbing for reasons of their own, grief, much though she did to struggle against it, mastered her feelings too, and producing a handkerchief, she dried the tears that came to her eyes. So there stood four inmates, face to face, uttering not a word and indulging in weeping.

Shortly, Hsi Jen made a supreme effort, and smilingly said to Pao-yü: "If you don't care for anything else, you should at least have shown some regard for those tassels, strung on the jade, and not have wrangled with Miss Lin."

Tai-yü heard these words, and, mindless of her indisposition, she rushed over, and snatching the trinket, she picked up a pair of scissors, lying close at hand, bent upon cutting the tassels. Hsi Jen and Tzu Chüan were on the point of wresting it from her, but she had already managed to mangle them into several pieces.

"I have," sobbed Tai-yü, "wasted my energies on them for nothing; for he doesn't prize them. He's certain to find others to string some more fine tassels for him."

Hsi Jen promptly took the jade. "Is it worth while going on in this way!" she cried. "But this is all my fault for having blabbered just now what should have been left unsaid."

"Cut it, if you like!" chimed in Pao-yü, addressing himself to Tai-yü.
"I will on no account wear it, so it doesn't matter a rap."

But while all they minded inside was to create this commotion, they little dreamt that the old matrons had descried Tai-yü weep bitterly and vomit copiously, and Pao-yü again dash his jade on the ground, and that not knowing how far the excitement might not go, and whether they themselves might not become involved, they had repaired in a body to the front, and reported the occurrence to dowager lady Chia and Madame Wang, their object being to try and avoid being themselves implicated in the matter. Their old mistress and Madame Wang, seeing them make so much of the occurrence as to rush with precipitate haste to bring it to their notice, could not in the least imagine what great disaster might not have befallen them, and without loss of time they betook themselves together into the garden and came to see what the two cousins were up to.

Hsi Jen felt irritated and harboured resentment against Tzu Chüan, unable to conceive what business she had to go and disturb their old mistress and Madame Wang. But Tzu Chüan, on the other hand, presumed that it was Hsi Jen, who had gone and reported the matter to them, and she too cherished angry feelings towards Hsi Jen.

Dowager lady Chia and Madame Wang walked into the apartment. They found Pao-yü on one side saying not a word. Lin Tai-yü on the other uttering not a sound. "What's up again?" they asked. But throwing the whole blame upon the shoulders of Hsi Jen and Tzu Chüan, "why is it," they inquired, "that you were not diligent in your attendance on them. They now start a quarrel, and don't you exert yourselves in the least to restrain them?"

Therefore with obloquy and hard words they rated the two girls for a time in such a way that neither of them could put in a word by way of reply, but felt compelled to listen patiently. And it was only after dowager lady Chia had taken Pao-yü away with her that things quieted down again.

One day passed. Then came the third of the moon. This was Hsüeh Pan's birthday, so in their house a banquet was spread and preparations made for a performance; and to these the various inmates of the Chia mansion went. But as Pao-yü had so hurt Tai-yü's feelings, the two cousins saw nothing whatever of each other, and conscience-stricken, despondent and unhappy, as he was at this time could he have had any inclination to be present at the plays? Hence it was that he refused to go on the pretext of indisposition.

Lin Tai-yü had got, a couple of days back, but a slight touch of the sun and naturally there was nothing much the matter with her. When the news however reached her that he did not intend to join the party, "If with his weakness for wine and for theatricals," she pondered within herself, "he now chooses to stay away, instead of going, why, that quarrel with me yesterday must be at the bottom of it all. If this isn't the reason, well then it must be that he has no wish to attend, as he sees that I'm not going either. But I should on no account have cut the tassels from that jade, for I feel sure he won't wear it again. I shall therefore have to string some more on to it, before he puts it on."

On this account the keenest remorse gnawed her heart.

Dowager lady Chia saw well enough that they were both under the influence of temper. "We should avail ourselves of this occasion," she said to herself, "to go over and look at the plays, and as soon as the two young people come face to face, everything will be squared." Contrary to her expectations neither of them would volunteer to go. This so exasperated their old grandmother that she felt vexed with them. "In what part of my previous existence could an old sufferer like myself," she exclaimed, "have incurred such retribution that my destiny is to come across these two troublesome new-fledged foes! Why, not a single day goes by without their being instrumental in worrying my mind! The proverb is indeed correct which says: 'that people who are not enemies are not brought together!' But shortly my eyes shall be closed, this breath of mine shall be snapped, and those two enemies will be free to cause trouble even up to the very skies; for as my eyes will then loose their power of vision, and my heart will be void of concern, it will really be nothing to me. But I couldn't very well stifle this breath of life of mine!"

While inwardly a prey to resentment, she also melted into tears.

These words were brought to the ears of Pao-yü and Tai-yü. Neither of them had hitherto heard the adage: "people who are not enemies are not brought together," so when they suddenly got to know the line, it seemed as if they had apprehended abstraction. Both lowered their heads and meditated on the subtle sense of the saying. But unconsciously a stream of tears rolled down their cheeks. They could not, it is true, get a glimpse of each other; yet as the one was in the Hsiao Hsiang lodge, standing in the breeze, bedewed with tears, and the other in the I Hung court, facing the moon and heaving deep sighs, was it not, in fact, a case of two persons living in two distinct places, yet with feelings emanating from one and the same heart?

Hsi Jen consequently tendered advice to Pao-yü. "You're a million times to blame," she said, "it's you who are entirely at fault! For when some time ago the pages in the establishment, wrangled with their sisters, or when husband and wife fell out, and you came to hear anything about it, you blew up the lads, and called them fools for not having the heart to show some regard to girls; and now here you go and follow their lead. But to-morrow is the fifth day of the moon, a great festival, and will you two still continue like this, as if you were very enemies? If so, our venerable mistress will be the more angry, and she certainly will be driven sick! I advise you therefore to do what's right by suppressing your spite and confessing your fault, so that we should all be on the same terms as hitherto. You here will then be all right, and so will she over there."

Pao-yü listened to what she had to say; but whether he fell in with her views or not is not yet ascertained; yet if you, reader, choose to know, we will explain in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXX.

  Pao-ch'ai avails herself of the excuse afforded her by a fan to
      administer a couple of raps.
  While Ch'un Ling traces, in a absent frame of mind, the outlines of
      the character Ch'iang, a looker-on appears on the scene.       

Lin Tai-yü herself, for we will now resume our narrative, was also, ever since her tiff with Pao-yü, full of self-condemnation, yet as she did not see why she should run after him, she continued, day and night, as despondent as she would have been had she lost some thing or other belonging to her.

Tzu Chüan surmised her sentiments. "As regards what happened the other day," she advised her, "you were, after all, Miss, a little too hasty; for if others don't understand that temperament of Pao-yü's, have you and I, surely, also no idea about it? Besides, haven't there been already one or two rows on account of that very jade?"

"Ts'ui!" exclaimed Tai-yü. "Have you come, on behalf of others, to find fault with me? But how ever was I hasty?"

"Why did you," smiled Tzu Chüan, "take the scissors and cut that tassel when there was no good reason for it? So isn't Pao-yü less to blame than yourself, Miss? I've always found his behaviour towards you, Miss, without a fault. It's all that touchy disposition of yours, which makes you so often perverse, that induces him to act as he does."

Lin Tai-yü had every wish to make some suitable reply, when she heard some one calling at the door. Tzu Chüan discerned the tone of voice. "This sounds like Pao-yü's voice," she smiled. "I expect he's come to make his apologies."

"I won't have any one open the door," Tai-yü cried at these words.

"Here you are in the wrong again, Miss," Tzu Chüan observed. "How will it ever do to let him get a sunstroke and come to some harm on a day like this, and under such a scorching sun?"

Saying this, she speedily walked out and opened the door. It was indeed
Pao-yü. While ushering him in, she gave him a smile. "I imagined," she
said, "that you would never again put your foot inside our door, Master
Secundus. But here you are once more and quite unexpectedly!"

"You have by dint of talking," Pao-yü laughed, "made much ado of nothing; and why shouldn't I come, when there's no reason for me to keep away? Were I even to die, my spirit too will come a hundred times a day! But is cousin quite well?"

"She is," replied Tzu Chüan, "physically all right; but, mentally, her resentment is not quite over."

"I understand," continued Pao-yü with a smile. "But resentment, for what?"

With this inquiry, he wended his steps inside the apartment. He then caught sight of Lin Tai-yü reclining on the bed in the act of crying. Tai-yü had not in fact shed a tear, but hearing Pao-yü break in upon her, she could not help feeling upset. She found it impossible therefore to prevent her tears from rolling down her cheeks.

Pao-yü assumed a smiling expression and drew near the bed. "Cousin, are you quite well again?" he inquired.

Tai-yü simply went on drying her tears, and made no reply of any kind.

Pao-yü approached the bed, and sat on the edge of it. "I know," he smiled, "that you're not vexed with me. But had I not come, third parties would have been allowed to notice my absence, and it would have appeared to them as if we had had another quarrel. And had I to wait until they came to reconcile us, would we not by that time become perfect strangers? It would be better, supposing you wish to beat me or blow me up, that you should please yourself and do so now; but whatever you do, don't give me the cold shoulder!"

Continuing, he proceeded to call her "my dear cousin" for several tens of times.

Tai-yü had resolved not to pay any more heed to Pao-yü. When she, however, now heard Pao-yü urge: "don't let us allow others to know anything about our having had a quarrel, as it will look as if we had become thorough strangers," it once more became evident to her, from this single remark, that she was really dearer and nearer to him than any of the other girls, so she could not refrain from saying sobbingly: "You needn't have come to chaff me! I couldn't presume henceforward to be on friendly terms with you, Master Secundus! You should treat me as if I were gone!"

At these words, Pao-yü gave way to laughter. "Where are you off to?" he inquired.

"I'm going back home," answered Tai-yü.

"I'll go along with you then," smiled Pao-yü.

"But if I die?" asked Tai-yü.

"Well, if you die," rejoined Pao-yü, "I'll become a bonze."

The moment Tai-yü caught this reply, she hung down her head. "You must, I presume, be bent upon dying?" she cried. "But what stuff and nonsense is this you're talking? You've got so many beloved elder and younger cousins in your family, and how many bodies will you have to go and become bonzes, when by and bye they all pass away! But to-morrow I'll tell them about this to judge for themselves what your motives are!"

Pao-yü was himself aware of the fact that this rejoinder had been recklessly spoken, and he was seized with regret. His face immediately became suffused with blushes. He lowered his head and had not the courage to utter one word more. Fortunately, however, there was no one present in the room.

Tai-yü stared at him for ever so long with eyes fixed straight on him, but losing control over her temper, "Ai!" she shouted, "can't you speak?" Then when she perceived Pao-yü reduced to such straits as to turn purple, she clenched her teeth and spitefully gave him, on the forehead, a fillip with her finger. "Heug!" she cried gnashing her teeth, "you, this……" But just as she had pronounced these two words, she heaved another sigh, and picking up her handkerchief, she wiped her tears.

Pao-yü treasured at one time numberless tender things in his mind, which he meant to tell her, but feeling also, while he smarted under the sting of self-reproach (for the indiscretion he had committed), Tai-yü give him a rap, he was utterly powerless to open his lips, much though he may have liked to speak, so he kept on sighing and snivelling to himself. With all these things therefore to work upon his feelings, he unwillingly melted into tears. He tried to find his handkerchief to dry his face with, but unexpectedly discovering that he had again forgotten to bring one with him, he was about to make his coat-sleeve answer the purpose, when Tai-yü, albeit her eyes were watery, noticed at a glance that he was going to use the brand-new coat of grey coloured gauze he wore, and while wiping her own, she turned herself round, and seized a silk kerchief thrown over the pillow, and thrust it into Pao-yü's lap. But without saying a word, she screened her face and continued sobbing.

Pao-yü saw the handkerchief she threw, and hastily snatching it, he wiped his tears. Then drawing nearer to her, he put out his hand and clasped her hand in his, and smilingly said to her: "You've completely lacerated my heart, and do you still cry? But let's go; I'll come along with you and see our venerable grandmother."

Tai-yü thrust his hand aside. "Who wants to go hand in hand with you?" she cried. "Here we grow older day after day, but we're still so full of brazen-faced effrontery that we don't even know what right means?"

But scarcely had she concluded before she heard a voice say aloud:
"They're all right!"

Pao-yü and Tai-yü were little prepared for this surprise, and they were startled out of their senses. Turning round to see who it was, they caught sight of lady Feng running in, laughing and shouting. "Our old lady," she said, "is over there, giving way to anger against heaven and earth. She would insist upon my coming to find out whether you were reconciled or not. 'There's no need for me to go and see,' I told her, 'they will before the expiry of three days, be friends again of their own accord.' Our venerable ancestor, however, called me to account, and maintained that I was lazy; so here I come! But my words have in very deed turned out true. I don't see why you two should always be wrangling! For three days you're on good terms and for two on bad. You become more and more like children. And here you are now hand in hand blubbering! But why did you again yesterday become like black-eyed fighting cocks? Don't you yet come with me to see your grandmother and make an old lady like her set her mind at ease a bit?"

While reproaching them, she clutched Tai-yü's hand and was trudging away, when Tai-yü turned her head round and called out for her servant-girls. But not one of them was in attendance.

"What do you want them for again?" lady Feng asked. "I am here to wait on you!"

Still speaking, she pulled her along on their way, with Pao-yü following in their footsteps. Then making their exit out of the garden gate, they entered dowager lady Chia's suite of rooms. "I said that it was superfluous for any one to trouble," lady Feng smiled, "as they were sure of themselves to become reconciled; but you, dear ancestor, so little believed it that you insisted upon my going to act the part of mediator. Yet when I got there, with the intention of inducing them to make it up, I found them, though one did not expect it, in each other's company, confessing their faults, and laughing and chatting. Just like a yellow eagle clutching the feet of a kite were those two hanging on to each other. So where was the necessity for any one to go?"

These words evoked laughter from every one in the room. Pao-ch'ai, however, was present at the time so Lin Tai-yü did not retort, but went and ensconced herself in a seat near her grandmother.

When Pao-yü noticed that no one had anything to say, he smilingly addressed himself to Pao-ch'ai. "On cousin Hsüeh P'an's birth-day," he remarked, "I happened again to be unwell, so not only did I not send him any presents, but I failed to go and knock my head before him. Yet cousin knows nothing about my having been ill, and it will seem to him that I had no wish to go, and that I brought forward excuses so as to avoid paying him a visit. If to-morrow you find any leisure, cousin, do therefore explain matters for me to him."

"This is too much punctiliousness!" smiled Pao-ch'ai. "Even had you insisted upon going, we wouldn't have been so arrogant as to let you put yourself to the trouble, and how much less when you were not feeling well? You two are cousins and are always to be found together the whole day; if you encourage such ideas, some estrangement will, after all, arise between you."

"Cousin," continued Pao-yü smilingly, "you know what to say; and so long as you're lenient with me all will be all right. But how is it," he went on to ask, "that you haven't gone over to see the theatricals?"

"I couldn't stand the heat" rejoined Pao-ch'ai. "I looked on while two plays were being sung, but I found it so intensely hot, that I felt anxious to retire. But the visitors not having dispersed, I had to give as an excuse that I wasn't feeling up to the mark, and so came away at once."

Pao-yü, at these words, could not but feel ill at ease. All he could do was to feign another smile. "It's no wonder," he observed, "that they compare you, cousin, to Yang Kuei-fei; for she too was fat and afraid of hot weather."

Hearing this, Pao-ch'ai involuntarily flew into a violent rage. Yet when about to call him to task, she found that it would not be nice for her to do so. After some reflection, the colour rushed to her cheeks. Smiling ironically twice, "I may resemble," she said, "Yang Kuei-fei, but there's not one of you young men, whether senior or junior, good enough to play the part of Yang Kuo-chung."

While they were bandying words, a servant-girl Ch'ing Erh, lost sight of her fan and laughingly remarked to Pao-ch'ai: "It must be you, Miss Pao, who have put my fan away somewhere or other; dear mistress, do let me have it!"

"You'd better be mindful!" rejoined Pao-ch'ai, shaking her finger at her. "With whom have I ever been up to jokes, that you come and suspect me? Have I hitherto laughed and smirked with you? There's that whole lot of girls, go and ask them about it!"

At this suggestion, Ch'ing Erh made her escape.

The consciousness then burst upon Pao-yü, that he had again been inconsiderate in his speech, in the presence of so many persons, and he was overcome by a greater sense of shame than when, a short while back, he had been speaking with Lin Tai-yü. Precipitately turning himself round, he went, therefore, and talked to the others as well.

The sight of Pao-yü poking fun at Pao-ch'ai gratified Tai-yü immensely. She was just about to put in her word and also seize the opportunity of chaffing her, but as Ch'ing Erh unawares asked for her fan and Pao-ch'ai added a few more remarks, she at once changed her purpose. "Cousin Pao-ch'ai," she inquired, "what two plays did you hear?"

Pao-ch'ai caught the expression of gratification in Tai-yü's countenance, and concluded that she had for a certainty heard the raillery recently indulged in by Pao-yü and that it had fallen in with her own wishes; and hearing her also suddenly ask the question she did, she answered with a significant laugh: "What I saw was: 'Li Kuei blows up Sung Chiang and subsequently again tenders his apologies'."

Pao-yü smiled. "How is it," he said, "that with such wide knowledge of things new as well as old; and such general information as you possess, you aren't even up to the name of a play, and that you've come out with such a whole string of words. Why, the real name of the play is: 'Carrying a birch and begging for punishment'".

"Is it truly called: 'Carrying a birch and begging for punishment'"? Pao-ch'ai asked with laugh. "But you people know all things new and old so are able to understand the import of 'carrying a birch and begging for punishment.' As for me I've no idea whatever what 'carrying a birch and begging for punishment' implies."

One sentence was scarcely ended when Pao-yü and Tai-yü felt guilty in their consciences; and by the time they heard all she said, they were quite flushed from shame. Lady Feng did not, it is true, fathom the gist of what had been said, but at the sight of the expression betrayed on the faces of the three cousins, she readily got an inkling of it. "On this broiling hot day," she inquired laughing also; "who still eats raw ginger?"

None of the party could make out the import of her insinuation. "There's no one eating raw ginger," they said.

Lady Feng intentionally then brought her hands to her cheeks, and rubbing them, she remarked with an air of utter astonishment, "Since there's no one eating raw ginger, how is it that you are all so fiery in the face?"

Hearing this, Pao-yü and Tai-yü waxed more uncomfortable than ever. So much so, that Pao-ch'ai, who meant to continue the conversation, did not think it nice to say anything more when she saw how utterly abashed Pao-yü was and how changed his manner. Her only course was therefore to smile and hold her peace. And as the rest of the inmates had not the faintest notion of the drift of the remarks exchanged between the four of them, they consequently followed her lead and put on a smile.

In a short while, however, Pao-ch'ai and lady Feng took their leave.

"You've also tried your strength with them," Tai-yü said to Pao-yü laughingly. "But they're far worse than I. Is every one as simple in mind and dull of tongue as I am as to allow people to say whatever they like."

Pao-yü was inwardly giving way to that unhappiness, which had been occasioned by Pao-ch'ai's touchiness, so when he also saw Tai-yü approach him and taunt him, displeasure keener than ever was aroused in him. A desire then asserted itself to speak out his mind to her, but dreading lest Tai-yü should he in one of her sensitive moods, he, needless to say, stifled his anger and straightway left the apartment in a state of mental depression.

It happened to be the season of the greatest heat. Breakfast time too was already past, and masters as well as servants were, for the most part, under the influence of the lassitude felt on lengthy days. As Pao-yü therefore strolled, from place to place, his hands behind his back he heard not so much as the caw of a crow. Issuing out of his grandmother's compound on the near side, he wended his steps westwards, and crossed the passage, on which lady Feng's quarters gave. As soon as he reached the entrance of her court, he perceived the door ajar. But aware of lady Feng's habit of taking, during the hot weather, a couple of hours' siesta at noon, he did not feel it a convenient moment to intrude. Walking accordingly through the corner door, he stepped into Madame Wang's apartment. Here he discovered several waiting-maids, dosing with their needlework clasped in their hands. Madame Wang was asleep on the cool couch in the inner rooms. Chin Ch'uan-erh was sitting next to her massaging her legs. But she too was quite drowsy, and her eyes wore all awry. Pao-yü drew up to her with gentle tread. The moment, however, that he unfastened the pendants from the earrings she wore, Chin Ch'uan opened her eyes, and realised that it was no one than Pao-yü.

"Are you feeling so worn out!" he smilingly remarked in a low tone of voice.

Chin Ch'uan pursed up her lips and gave him a smile. Then waving her hand so as to bid him quit the room, she again closed her eyes.

Pao-yü, at the sight of her, felt considerable affection for her and unable to tear himself away, so quietly stretching his head forward, and noticing that Madame Wang's eyes were shut, he extracted from a purse, suspended about his person, one of the 'scented-snow-for-moistening-mouth pills,' with which it was full, and placed it on Chin Ch'uan-erh's lips. Chin Ch'uan-erh, however, did not open her eyes, but simply held (the pill) in her mouth. Pao-yü then approached her and took her hand in his. "I'll ask you of your mistress," he gently observed smiling, "and you and I will live together."

To this Chin Ch'uan-erh said not a word.

"If that won't do," Pao-yü continued, "I'll wait for your mistress to wake and appeal to her at once."

Chin Ch'uan-erh distended her eyes wide, and pushed Pao-yü off. "What's the hurry?" she laughed. "'A gold hair-pin may fall into the well; but if it's yours it will remain yours only.' Is it possible that you don't even see the spirit of this proverb? But I'll tell you a smart thing. Just you go into the small court, on the east side, and you'll find for yourself what Mr. Chia Huau and Ts'ai Yun are up to!"

"Let them be up to whatever they like," smiled Pao-yü, "I shall simply stick to your side!"

But he then saw Madame Wang twist herself round, get up, and give a slap to Chin Ch'uan-erh on her mouth. "You mean wench!" she exclaimed, abusing her, while she pointed her finger at her, "it's you, and the like of you, who corrupt these fine young fellows with all the nice things you teach them!"

The moment Pao-yü perceived Madame Wang rise, he bolted like a streak of smoke. Chin Ch'uan-erh, meanwhile, felt half of her face as hot as fire, yet she did not dare utter one word of complaint. The various waiting-maids soon came to hear that Madame Wang had awoke and they rushed in in a body.

"Go and tell your mother," Madame Wang thereupon said to Yü Ch'uan-erh, "to fetch your elder sister away."

Chin Ch'uan-erh, at these words, speedily fell on her knees. With tears in her eyes: "I won't venture to do it again," she pleaded. "If you, Madame, wish to flog me, or to scold me do so at once, and as much as you like but don't send me away. You will thus accomplish an act of heavenly grace! I've been in attendance on your ladyship for about ten years, and if you now drive me away, will I be able to look at any one in the face?"

Though Madame Wang was a generous, tender-hearted person, and had at no time raised her hand to give a single blow to any servant-girl, she, however, when she accidentally discovered Chin Ch'uan-erh behave on this occasion in this barefaced manner, a manner which had all her lifetime been most reprehensible to her, was so overcome by passion that she gave Chin Ch'uan-erh just one slap and spoke to her a few sharp words. And albeit Chin Ch'uan-erh indulged in solicitous entreaties, she would not on any account keep her in her service. At length, Chin Ch'uan-erh's mother, Dame Pao, was sent for to take her away. Chin Ch'uan-erh therefore had to conceal her disgrace, suppress her resentment, and quit the mansion.

But without any further reference to her, we will now take up our story with Pao-yü. As soon as he saw Madame Wang awake, his spirits were crushed. All alone he hastily made his way into the Ta Kuan garden. Here his attention was attracted by the ruddy sun, shining in the zenith, the shade of the trees extending far and wide, the song of the cicadas, filling the ear; and by a perfect stillness, not even broken by the echo of a human voice. But the instant he got near the trellis, with the cinnamon roses, the sound of sobs fell on his ear. Doubts and surmises crept into Pao-yü's mind, so halting at once, he listened with intentness. Then actually he discerned some one on the off-side of the trellis. This was the fifth moon, the season when the flowers and foliage of the cinnamon roses were in full bloom. Furtively peeping through an aperture in the fence, Pao-yü saw a young girl squatting under the flowers and digging the ground with a hair-pin she held in her hand. As she dug, she silently gave way to tears.

"Can it be possible," mused Pao-yü, "that this girl too is stupid? Can she also be following P'in Erh's example and come to inter flowers? Why if she's likewise really burying flowers," he afterwards went on to smilingly reflect, "this can aptly be termed: 'Tung Shih tries to imitate a frown.' But not only is what she does not original, but it is despicable to boot. You needn't," he meant to shout out to the girl, at the conclusion of this train of thought, "try and copy Miss Lin's example." But before the words had issued from his mouth, he luckily scrutinised her a second time, and found that the girl's features were quite unfamiliar to him, that she was no menial, and that she looked like one of the twelve singing maids, who were getting up the plays. He could not, however, make out what rôles she filled: scholars, girls, old men, women, or buffoons. Pao-yü quickly put out his tongue and stopped his mouth with his hand. "How fortunate," he inwardly soliloquised, "that I didn't make any reckless remark! It was all because of my inconsiderate talk on the last two occasions, that P'in Erh got angry with me, and that Pao-ch'ai felt hurt. And had I now given them offence also, I would have been in a still more awkward fix!"

While wrapt in these thoughts, he felt much annoyance at not being able to recognise who she was. But on further minute inspection, he noticed that this maiden, with contracted eyebrows, as beautiful as the hills in spring, frowning eyes as clear as the streams in autumn, a face, with transparent skin, and a slim waist, was elegant and beautiful and almost the very image of Lin Tai-yü. Pao-yü could not, from the very first, make up his mind to wrench himself away. But as he stood gazing at her in a doltish mood, he realised that, although she was tracing on the ground with the gold hair-pin, she was not digging a hole to bury flowers in, but was merely delineating characters on the surface of the soil. Pao-yü's eyes followed the hair-pin from first to last, as it went up and as it came down. He watched each dash, each dot and each hook. He counted the strokes. They numbered eighteen. He himself then set to work and sketched with his finger on the palm of his hand, the lines, in their various directions, and in the order they had been traced a few minutes back, so as to endeavour to guess what the character was. On completing the sketch, he discovered, the moment he came to reflect, that it was the character "Ch'iang," in the combination, 'Ch'iang Wei,' representing cinnamon roses.

"She too," pondered Pao-yü, "must have been bent upon writing verses, or supplying some line or other, and at the sight now of the flowers, the idea must have suggested itself to her mind. Or it may very likely be that having spontaneously devised a couplet, she got suddenly elated and began, for fear it should slip from her memory, to trace it on the ground so as to tone the rhythm. Yet there's no saying. Let me see, however, what she's going to write next."

While cogitating, he looked once more. Lo, the girl was still tracing.
But tracing up or tracing down, it was ever the character "Ch'iang."
When he gazed again, it was still the self-same Ch'iang.

The one inside the fence fell, in fact, from an early stage, into a foolish mood, and no sooner was one 'Ch'iang,' finished than she started with another; so that she had already written several tens of them. The one outside gazed and gazed, until he unwittingly also got into the same foolish mood. Intent with his eyes upon following the movements of the pin, in his mind, he communed thus with his own thoughts: "This girl must, for a certainty, have something to say, or some unspeakable momentous secret that she goes on like this. But if outwardly she behaves in this wise, who knows what anguish she mayn't suffer at heart? And yet, with a frame to all appearances so very delicate, how could she ever resist much inward anxiety! Woe is me that I'm unable to transfer some part of her burden on to my own shoulders!"

In midsummer, cloudy and bright weather are uncertain. A few specks of clouds suffice to bring about rain. Of a sudden, a cold blast swept by, and tossed about by the wind fell a shower of rain. Pao-yü perceived that the water trickling down the girl's head saturated her gauze attire in no time. "It's pouring," Pao-yü debated within himself, "and how can a frame like hers resist the brunt of such a squall." Unable therefore to restrain himself, he vehemently shouted: "Leave off writing! See, it's pouring; you're wet through!"

The girl caught these words, and was frightened out of her wits. Raising her head, she at once descried some one or other standing beyond the flowers and calling out to her: "Leave off writing. It's pouring!" But as Pao-yü was, firstly, of handsome appearance, and as secondly the luxuriant abundance of flowers and foliage screened with their boughs, thick-laden with leaves, the upper and lower part of his person, just leaving half of his countenance exposed to view, the maiden simply jumped at the conclusion that he must be a servant girl, and never for a moment dreamt that it might be Pao-yü. "Many thanks, sister, for recalling me to my senses," she consequently smiled. "Yet is there forsooth anything outside there to protect you from the rain?"

This single remark proved sufficient to recall Pao-yü to himself. With an exclamation of "Ai-yah," he at length became conscious that his whole body was cold as ice. Then drooping his head, he realised that his own person too was drenched. "This will never do," he cried, and with one breath he had to run back into the I Hung court. His mind, however, continued much exercised about the girl as she had nothing to shelter her from the rain.

As the next day was the dragon-boat festival, Wen Kuan and the other singing girls, twelve in all, were given a holiday, so they came into the garden and amused themselves by roaming everywhere and anywhere. As luck would have it, the two girls Pao-Kuan, who filled the rôle of young men and Yü Kuan, who represented young women, were in the I Hung court enjoying themselves with Hsi Jen, when rain set in and they were prevented from going back, so in a body they stopped up the drain to allow the water to accumulate in the yard. Then catching those that could be caught, and driving those that had to be driven, they laid hold of a few of the green-headed ducks, variegated marsh-birds and coloured mandarin-ducks, and tying their wings they let them loose in the court to disport themselves. Closing the court Hsi Jen and her playmates stood together under the verandah and enjoyed the fun. Pao-yü therefore found the entrance shut. He gave a rap at the door. But as every one inside was bent upon laughing, they naturally did not catch the sound; and it was only after he had called and called, and made a noise by thumping at the door, that they at last heard. Imagining, however, that Pao-yü could not be coming back at that hour, Hsi Jen shouted laughing: "who's it now knocking at the door? There's no one to go and open."

"It's I," rejoined Pao-yü.

"It's Miss Pao-ch'ai's tone of voice," added She Yüeh.

"Nonsense!" cried Ch'ing Wen. "What would Miss Pao-ch'ai come over to do at such an hour?"

"Let me go," chimed in Hsi Jen, "and see through the fissure in the door, and if we can open, we'll open; for we mustn't let her go back, wet through."

With these words, she came along the passage to the doorway. On looking out, she espied Pao-yü dripping like a chicken drenched with rain.

Seeing him in this plight, Hsi Jen felt solicitous as well as amused. With alacrity, she flung the door wide open, laughing so heartily that she was doubled in two. "How could I ever have known," she said, clapping her hands, "that you had returned, Sir! Yet how is it that you've run back in this heavy rain?"

Pao-yü had, however, been feeling in no happy frame of mind. He had fully resolved within himself to administer a few kicks to the person, who came to open the door, so as soon as it was unbarred, he did not try to make sure who it was, but under the presumption that it was one of the servant-girls, he raised his leg and give her a kick on the side.

"Ai-yah!" ejaculated Hsi Jen.

Pao-yü nevertheless went on to abuse. "You mean things!" he shouted. "It's because I've always treated you so considerately that you don't respect me in the least! And you now go to the length of making a laughing-stock of me!"

As he spoke, he lowered his head. Then catching sight of Hsi Jen, in tears, he realised that he had kicked the wrong person. "Hallo!" he said, promptly smiling, "is it you who've come? Where did I kick you?"

Hsi Jen had never, previous to this, received even a harsh word from him. When therefore she on this occasion unexpectedly saw Pao-yü gave her a kick in a fit of anger and, what made it worse, in the presence of so many people, shame, resentment, and bodily pain overpowered her and she did not, in fact, for a time know where to go and hide herself. She was then about to give rein to her displeasure, but the reflection that Pao-yü could not have kicked her intentionally obliged her to suppress her indignation. "Instead of kicking," she remarked, "don't you yet go and change your clothes?"

Pao-yü walked into the room. As he did so, he smiled. "Up to the age I've reached," he observed, "this is the first instance on which I've ever so thoroughly lost control over my temper as to strike any one; and, contrary to all my thoughts, it's you that happened to come in my way?"

Hsi Jen, while patiently enduring the pain, effected the necessary change in his attire. "I've been here from the very first," she simultaneously added, smilingly, "so in all things, whether large or small, good or bad, it has naturally fallen to my share to bear the brunt. But not to say another word about your assault on me, why, to-morrow you'll indulge your hand and start beating others!"

"I did not strike you intentionally just now," retorted Pao-yü.

"Who ever said," rejoined Hsi Jen, "that you did it intentionally! It has ever been the duty of that tribe of servant-girls to open and shut the doors, yet they've got into the way of being obstinate, and have long ago become such an abomination that people's teeth itch to revenge themselves on them. They don't know, besides, what fear means. So had you first assured yourself that it was they and given them a kick, a little intimidating would have done them good. But I'm at the bottom of the mischief that happened just now, for not calling those, upon whom it devolves, to come and open for you."

During the course of their conversation, the rain ceased, and Pao Kuan and Yü Kuan had been able to take their leave. Hsi Jen, however, experienced such intense pain in her side, and felt such inward vexation, that at supper she could not put a morsel of anything in her mouth. When in the evening, the time came for her to have her bath, she discovered, on divesting herself of her clothes, a bluish bruise on her side of the size of a saucer and she was very much frightened. But as she could not very well say anything about it to any one, she presently retired to rest. But twitches of pain made her involuntarily moan in her dreams and groan in her sleep.

Pao-yü did, it is true, not hurt her with any malice, but when he saw Hsi Jen so listless and restless, and suddenly heard her groan in the course of the night, he realised how severely he must have kicked her. So getting out of bed, he gently seized the lantern and came over to look at her. But as soon as he reached the side of her bed, he perceived Hsi Jen expectorate, with a retch, a whole mouthful of phlegm. "Oh me!" she gasped, as she opened her eyes. The presence of Pao-yü startled her out of her wits. "What are you up to?" she asked.

"You groaned in your dreams," answered Pao-yü, "so I must have kicked you hard. Do let me see!"

"My head feels giddy," said Hsi Jen. "My throat foul and sweet; throw the light on the floor!"

At these words, Pao-yü actually raised the lantern. The moment he cast the light below, he discerned a quantity of fresh blood on the floor.

Pao-yü was seized with consternation. "Dreadful!" was all he could say.
At the sight of the blood, Hsi Jen's heart too partly waxed cold.

But, reader, the next chapter will reveal the sequel, if you really have any wish to know more about them.

CHAPTER XXXI.

  Pao-yü allows the girl Ch'ing Wen to tear his fan so as to afford her
      amusement.
  A wedding proves to be the result of the descent of a unicorn.   

But to proceed. When she saw on the floor the blood, she had brought up, Hsi Jen immediately grew partly cold. What she had often heard people mention in past days 'that the lives of young people, who expectorate blood, are uncertain, and that although they may live long, they are, after all, mere wrecks,' flashed through her mind. The remembrance of this saying at once completely scattered to the winds the wish, she had all along cherished, of striving for honour and of being able to boast of glory; and from her eyes unwittingly ran down streams of tears.

When Pao-yü saw her crying, his heart was seized with anguish. "What's it that preys on your mind?" he consequently asked her.

Hsi Jen strained every nerve to smile. "There's no rhyme or reason for anything," she replied, "so what can it be?"

Pao-yü's intention was to there and then give orders to the servant to warm some white wine and to ask them for a few 'Li-T'ung' pills compounded with goat's blood, but Hsi Jen clasped his hand tight. "My troubling you is of no matter," she smiled, "but were I to put ever so many people to inconvenience, they'll bear me a grudge for my impudence. Not a soul, it's clear enough, knows anything about it now, but were you to make such a bustle as to bring it to people's notice, you'll be in an awkward fix, and so will I. The proper thing, therefore, is for you to send a page to-morrow to request Dr. Wang to prepare some medicine for me. When I take this I shall be all right. And as neither any human being nor spirit will thus get wind of it, won't it be better?"

Pao-yü found her suggestion so full of reason that he thought himself obliged to abandon his purpose; so approaching the table, he poured a cup of tea, and came over and gave it to Hsi Jen to rinse her mouth with. Aware, however, as Hsi Jen was that Pao-yü himself was not feeling at ease in his mind, she was on the point of bidding him not wait upon her; but convinced that he would once more be certain not to accede to her wishes, and that the others would, in the second place, have to be disturbed, she deemed it expedient to humour him. Leaning on the couch, she consequently allowed Pao-yü to come and attend to her.

As soon as the fifth watch struck, Pao-yü, unmindful of combing or washing, hastily put on his clothes and left the room; and sending for Wang Chi-jen, he personally questioned him with all minuteness about her ailment.

Wang Chi-jen asked how it had come about. "It's simply a bruise; nothing more," (he said), and forthwith he gave him the names of some pills and medicines, and told him how they were to be taken, and how they were to be applied.

Pao-yü committed every detail to memory, and on his return into the garden, the treatment was, needless for us to explain, taken in hand in strict compliance with the directions.

This was the day of the dragon-boat festival. Cat-tail and artemisia were put over the doors. Tiger charms were suspended on every back. At noon, Madame Wang got a banquet ready, and to this midday feast, she invited the mother, daughter and the rest of the members of the Hsüeh household.

Pao-yü noticed that Pao-ch'ai was in such low spirits that she would not even speak to him, and concluded that the reason was to be sought in the incident of the previous day. Madame Wang seeing Pao-yü in a sullen humour jumped at the surmise that it must be due to Chin Ch'uan's affair of the day before; and so ill at ease did she feel that she heeded him less than ever. Lin Tai-yü, detected Pao-yü's apathy, and presumed that he was out of sorts for having given umbrage to Pao-ch'ai, and her manner likewise assumed a listless air. Lady Feng had, in the course of the previous evening, been told by Madame Wang what had taken place between Pao-yü and Chin Ch'uan, and when she came to know that Madame Wang was in an unhappy frame of mind she herself did not venture to chat or laugh, but at once regulated her behaviour to suit Madame Wang's mood. So the lack of animation became more than ever perceptible; for the good cheer of Ying Ch'un and her sisters was also damped by the sight of all of them down in the mouth. The natural consequence therefore was that they all left after a very short stay.

Lin Tai-yü had a natural predilection for retirement. She did not care for social gatherings. Her notions, however, were not entirely devoid of reason. She maintained that people who gathered together must soon part; that when they came together, they were full of rejoicing, but did they not feel lonely when they broke up? That since this sense of loneliness gave rise to chagrin, it was consequently preferable not to have any gatherings. That flowers afforded an apt example. When they opened, they won people's admiration; but when they faded, they added to the feeling of vexation; so that better were it if they did not blossom at all! To this cause therefore must be assigned the fact that when other people were glad, she, on the contrary, felt unhappy.

Pao-yü's disposition was such that he simply yearned for frequent gatherings, and looked forward with sorrow to the breaking up which must too soon come round. As for flowers, he wished them to bloom repeatedly and was haunted with the dread of their dying in a little time. Yet albeit manifold anguish fell to his share when banquets drew to a close and flowers began to fade, he had no alternative but to practice resignation.

On this account was it that, when the company cheerlessly broke up from the present feast, Lin Tai-yü did not mind the separation; and that Pao-yü experienced such melancholy and depression, that, on his return to his apartments, he gave way to deep groans and frequent sighs.

Ch'ing Wen, as it happened, came to the upper quarters to change her costume. In an unguarded moment, she let her fan slip out of her hand and drop on the ground. As it fell, the bones were snapped. "You stupid thing!" Pao-yü exclaimed, sighing, "what a dunce! what next will you be up to by and bye? When, in a little time, you get married and have a home of your own, will you, forsooth, still go on in this happy-go-lucky careless sort of way?"

"Master Secundus," replied Ch'ing Wen with a sardonic smile, "your temper is of late dreadfully fiery, and time and again it leaks out on your very face! The other day you even beat Hsi Jen and here you are again now finding fault with us! If you feel disposed to kick or strike us, you are at liberty, Sir, to do so at your pleasure; but for a fan to slip on the ground is an everyday occurrence! How many of those crystal jars and cornelian bowls were smashed the other time, I don't remember, and yet you were not seen to fly into a tantrum; and now, for a fan do you distress yourself so? What's the use of it? If you dislike us, well pack us off and select some good girls to serve you, and we will quietly go away. Won't this be better?"

This rejoinder so exasperated Pao-yü that his whole frame trembled violently. "You needn't be in a hurry!" he then shouted. "There will be a day of parting by and bye."

Hsi Jen was on the other side, and from an early period she listened to the conversation between them. Hurriedly crossing over, "what are you up to again?" she said to Pao-yü, "why, there's nothing to put your monkey up! I'm perfectly right in my assertion that when I'm away for any length of time, something is sure to happen."

Ch'ing Wen heard these remarks. "Sister," she interposed smiling ironically, "since you've got the gift of the gab, you should have come at once; you would then have spared your master his fit of anger. It's you who have from bygone days up to the present waited upon master; we've never had anything to do with attending on him; and it's because you've served him so faithfully that he repaid you yesterday with a kick on the stomach. But who knows what punishment mayn't be in store for us, who aren't fit to wait upon him decently!"

At these insinuations, Hsi Jen felt both incensed and ashamed. She was about to make some response but Pao-yü had worked himself into such another passion as to get quite yellow in the face, and she was obliged to rein in her temper. Pushing Ch'ing Wen, "Dear sister," she cried, "you had better be off for a stroll! it's really we, who are to blame!"

The very mention of the word "we" made it certain to Ch'ing Wen that she implied herself and Pao-yü, and thus unawares more fuel was added again to her jealous notions. Giving way to several loud smiles, full of irony: "I can't make out," she insinuated, "who you may mean. But don't make me blush on your account! Even those devilish pranks of yours can't hoodwink me! How and why is it that you've started styling yourself as 'we?' Properly speaking, you haven't as yet so much as attained the designation of 'Miss!' You're simply no better than I am, and how is it then that you presume so high as to call yourself 'we.' "

Hsi Jen's face grew purple from shame. "The fact is," she reflected, "that I've said more than I should."

"As one and all of you are ever bearing her malice," Pao-yü simultaneously observed, "I'll actually raise her to-morrow to a higher status!"

Hsi Jen quickly snatched Pao-yü's hand. "She's a stupid girl," she said, "what's the use of arguing with her? What's more, you've so far borne with them and overlooked ever, so many other things more grievous than this; and what are you up to to-day?"

"If I'm really a stupid girl," repeated Ch'ing Wen, smiling sarcastically, "am I a fit person for you to hold converse with? Why, I'm purely and simply a slave-girl; that's all."

"Are you, after all," cried Hsi Jen, at these words, "bickering with me, or with Master Secundus? If you bear me a grudge, you'd better then address your remarks to me alone; albeit it isn't right that you should kick up such a hullaballoo in the presence of Mr. Secundus. But if you have a spite against Mr. Secundus, you shouldn't be shouting so boisterously as to make thousands of people know all about it! I came in, a few minutes back, merely for the purpose of setting matters right, and of urging you to make up your quarrels so that we should all be on the safe side; and here I have the unlucky fate of being set upon by you, Miss! Yet you neither seem to be angry with me, nor with Mr. Secundus! But armed cap-à-pie as you appear to be, what is your ultimate design? I won't utter another word, but let you have your say!"

While she spoke, she was hurriedly wending her way out.

"You needn't raise your dander." Pao-yü remarked to Ch'ing Wen. "I've guessed the secret of your heart, so I'll go and tell mother that as you've also attained a certain age, she should send you away. Will this please you, yes or no?"

This allusion made Ch'ing Wen unwittingly feel again wounded at heart. She tried to conceal her tears. "Why should I go away?" she asked. "If even you be so prejudiced against me as to try and devise means to pack me off, you won't succeed."

"I never saw such brawling!" Pao-yü exclaimed. "You're certainly bent upon going! I might as well therefore let mother know so as to bundle you off!"

While addressing her, he rose to his feet and was intent upon trudging off at once. Hsi Jen lost no time in turning round and impeding his progress. "Where are you off to?" she cried.

"I'm going to tell mother," answered Pao-yü.

"It's no use whatever!" Hsi Jen smiled, "you may be in real earnest to go and tell her, but aren't you afraid of putting her to shame? If even she positively means to leave, you can very well wait until you two have got over this bad blood. And when everything is past and gone, it won't be any too late for you to explain, in the course of conversation, the whole case to our lady, your mother. But if you now go in hot haste and tell her, as if the matter were an urgent one, won't you be the means of making our mistress give way to suspicion?"

"My mother," demurred Pao-yü, "is sure not to entertain any suspicions, as all I will explain to her is that she insists upon leaving."

"When did I ever insist upon going?" sobbed Ch'ing Wen. "You fly into a rage, and then you have recourse to threats to intimidate me. But you're at liberty to go and say anything you like; for as I'll knock my brains out against the wall, I won't get alive out of this door."

"This is, indeed, strange!" exclaimed Pao-yü. "If you won't go, what's the good of all this fuss? I can't stand this bawling, so it will be a riddance if you would get out of the way!"

Saying this, he was resolved upon going to report the matter. Hsi Jen found herself powerless to dissuade him. She had in consequence no other resource but to fall on her knees.

Pi Hen, Ch'iu Wen, She Yüeh and the rest of the waiting-maids had realised what a serious aspect the dispute had assumed, and not a sound was to be heard to fall from their lips. They remained standing outside listening to what was going on. When they now overheard Hsi Jen making solicitous entreaties on her knees, they rushed into the apartment in a body; and with one consent they prostrated themselves on the floor.

Pao-yü at once pulled Hsi Jen up. Then with a sigh, he took a seat on the bed. "Get up," he shouted to the body of girls, "and clear out! What would you have me do?" he asked, addressing himself to Hsi Jen. "This heart of mine has been rent to pieces, and no one has any idea about it!"

While speaking, tears of a sudden rolled down his cheek. At the sight of Pao-yü weeping, Hsi Jen also melted into a fit of crying. Ch'ing Wen was standing by them, with watery eyes. She was on the point of reasoning with them, when espying Lin Tai-yü step into the room, she speedily walked out.

"On a grand holiday like this," remonstrated Lin Tai-yü smiling, "how is it that you're snivelling away, and all for nothing? Is it likely that high words have resulted all through that 'dumpling' contest?"

Pao-yü and Lin Tai-yü blurted out laughing.

"You don't tell me, cousin Secundus," Lin Tai-yü put in, "but I know all about it, even though I have asked no questions."

Now she spoke, and now she patted Hsi Jen on the shoulder. "My dear sister-in-law," she smiled, "just you tell me! It must surely be that you two have had a quarrel. Confide in me, your cousin, so that I might reconcile you."

"Miss Lin," rejoined Hsi Jen, pushing her off, "what are you fussing about? I am simply one of our servant-girls; you're therefore rather erratic in your talk!"

"You say that you're only a servant-girl," smilingly replied Tai-yü, "and yet I treat you like a sister-in-law."

"Why do you," Pao-yü chimed in, "give her this abusive epithet? But however much she may make allowance for this, can she, when there are so many others who tell idle tales on her account, put up with your coming and telling her all you've said?"

"Miss Lin," smiled Hsi Jen, "you're not aware of the purpose of my heart. Unless my breath fails and I die, I shall continue in his service."

"If you die," remarked Lin Tai-yü smiling, "what will others do, I wonder? As for me, I shall be the first to die from crying."

"Were you to die," added Pao-yü laughingly, "I shall become a bonze."

"You'd better be a little more sober-minded!" laughed Hsi Jen. "What's the good of coming out with all these things?"

Lin Tai-yü put out two of her fingers, and puckered up her lips. "Up to this," she laughed, "he's become a bonze twice. Henceforward, I'll try and remember how many times you make up your mind to become a Buddhist priest!"

This reminded Pao-yü that she was referring to a remark he had made on a previous occasion, but smiling to himself, he allowed the matter to drop.

After a short interval, Lin Tai-yü went away. A servant then came to announce that Mr. Hsüeh wanted to see him, and Pao-yü had to go. The purpose of this visit was in fact to invite him to a banquet, and as he could not very well put forward any excuse to refuse, he had to remain till the end of the feast before he was able to take his leave. The result was that, on his return, in the evening, he was to a great extent under the effect of wine. With bustling step, he wended his way into his own court. Here he perceived that the cool couch with a back to it, had already been placed in the yard, and that there was some one asleep on it. Prompted by the conviction that it must be Hsi Jen, Pao-yü seated himself on the edge of the couch. As he did so, he gave her a push, and inquired whether her sore place was any better. But thereupon he saw the occupant turn herself round, and exclaim: "What do you come again to irritate me for?"

Pao-yü, at a glance, realised that it was not Hsi Jen, but Ch'ing Wen. Pao-yü then clutched her and compelled her to sit next to him. "Your disposition," he smiled, "has been more and more spoilt through indulgence. When you let the fan drop this morning, I simply made one or two remarks, and out you came with that long rigmarole. Had you gone for me it wouldn't have mattered; but you also dragged in Hsi Jen, who only interfered with every good intention of inducing us to make it up again. But, ponder now, ought you to have done it; yes or no?"

"With this intense heat," remonstrated Ch'ing Wen, "why do you pull me and toss me about? Should any people see you, what will they think? But this person of mine isn't meet to be seated in here."

"Since you yourself know that it isn't meet," replied Pao-yü with a smile, "why then were you sleeping here?"

To this taunt Ch'ing Wen had nothing to say. But she spurted out into fresh laughter. "It was all right," she retorted, "during your absence; but the moment you come, it isn't meet for me to stay! Get up and let me go and have my bath. Hsi Jen and She Yüeh have both had theirs, so I'll call them here!"

"I've just had again a good deal of wine," remarked Pao-yü, laughingly; "so a wash will be good for me. And since you've not had your bath, you had better bring the water and let's both have it together."

"No, no!" smiled Ch'ing Wen, waving her hand, "I cannot presume to put you to any trouble, Sir. I still remember how when Pi Hen used to look after your bath you occupied fully two or three hours. What you were up to during that time we never knew. We could not very well walk in. When you had however done washing, and we entered your room, we found the floor so covered with water that the legs of the bed were soaking and the matting itself a regular pool. Nor could we make out what kind of washing you'd been having; and for days afterwards we had a laugh over it. But I've neither any time to get the water ready; nor do I see the need for you to have a wash along with me. Besides, to-day it's chilly, and as you've had a bath only a little while back, you can very well just now dispense with one. But I'll draw a basin of water for you to wash your face, and to shampoo your head with. Not long ago, Yüan Yang sent you a few fruits; they were put in that crystal bowl, so you'd better tell them to bring them to you to taste."

"Well, in that case." laughed Pao-yü, "you needn't also have a bath. Just simply wash your hands, and bring the fruit and let's have some together."

"I'm so shaky," smiled Ch'ing Wen "that even fans slip out of my hands, and how could I fetch the fruit for you. Were I also to break the dish, it will be still more dreadful!"

"If you want to break it, break it!" smiled Pao-yü. "These things are only intended for general use. You like this thing; I fancy that; our respective tastes are not identical. The original use of that fan, for instance, was to fan one's self with; but if you chose to break it for fun, you were quite at liberty to do so. The only thing is, when you get angry don't make it the means of giving vent to your temper! Just like those salvers. They are really meant for serving things in. But if you fancy that kind of sound, then deliberately smash them, that will be all right. But don't, when you are in high dudgeon avail yourself of them to air your resentment! That's what one would call having a fancy for a thing!"

Ch'ing Wen greeted his words with a smile.

"Since that be so," she said, "bring me your fan and let me tear it.
What most takes my fancy is tearing!"

Upon hearing this Pao-yü smilingly handed it to her. Ch'ing Wen, in point of fact, took it over, and with a crash she rent it in two. Close upon this, the sound of crash upon crash became audible.

Pao-yü was standing next to her. "How nice the noise is!" he laughed.
"Tear it again and make it sound a little more!"

But while he spoke, She Yüeh was seen to walk in. "Don't," she smiled, "be up to so much mischief!" Pao-yü, however, went up to her and snatching her fan also from her hand, he gave it to Ch'ing Wen. Ch'ing Wen took it and there and then likewise broke it in two. Both he and she then had a hearty laugh.

"What do you call this?" She Yüeh expostulated. "Do you take my property and make it the means of distracting yourselves!"

"Open the fan-box," shouted Pao-yü, "and choose one and take it away!
What, are they such fine things!"

"In that case," ventured She Yüeh, "fetch the fans and let her break as many as she can. Won't that be nice!"

"Go and bring them at once!" Pao-yü laughed.

"I won't be up to any such tomfoolery!" She Yüeh demurred. "She hasn't snapped her hands, so bid her go herself and fetch them!"

"I'm feeling tired," interposed Ch'ing Wen, as she laughingly leant on the bed. "I'll therefore tear some more to-morrow again."

"An old writer says," added Pao-yü with a smile, "'that a thousand ounces of gold cannot purchase a single laugh'! What can a few fans cost?"

After moralising, he went on to call Hsi Jen. Hsi Jen had just finished the necessary change in her dress so she stepped in; and a young servant-girl, Chiao Hui, crossed over and picked up the broken fans. Then they all sat and enjoyed the cool breeze. But we can well dispense with launching into any minute details.

On the morrow, noon found Madame Wang, Hsüeh Pao-ch'ai, Lin Tai-yü, and the rest of the young ladies congregated in dowager lady Chia's suite of rooms. Some one then brought the news that: "Miss Shih had arrived." In a little time they perceived Shih Hsiang-yun make her appearance in the court, at the head of a bevy of waiting-maids and married women. Pao-ch'ai, Tai-yu and her other cousins, quickly ran down the steps to meet her and exchange greetings. But with what fervour girls of tender years re-unite some day after a separation of months need not, of course, be explained. Presently, she entered the apartments, paid her respects and inquired how they all were. But after this conventional interchange of salutations, old lady Chia pressed her to take off her outer garments as the weather was so close. Shih Hsiang-yün lost no time in rising to her feet and loosening her clothes. "I don't see why," Madame Wang thereupon smiled, "you wear all these things!'

"It's entirely at aunt Secunda's bidding," retorted Shih Hsiang-yün, "that I put them on. Why, would any one of her own accord wear so many things!"

"Aunt," interposed Pao-ch'ai, who stood by, with a smile, "you're not aware that what most delights her in the matter of dress is to don other people's clothes! Yes, I remember how, during her stay here in the third and fourth moons of last year, she used to wear cousin Pao's pelisses. She even put on his shoes, and attached his frontlets as well round her head. At a casual glance, she looked the very image of cousin Pao; what was superfluous was that pair of earrings of hers. As she stood at the back of that chair she so thoroughly took in our venerable ancestor that she kept on shouting: 'Pao-yü, come over! Mind the tassels suspended on that lamp; for if you shake the dust off, it may get into your eyes!' But all she did was to laugh; she did not budge; and it was only after every one found it hard to keep their countenance that our worthy senior also started laughing. 'You do look well in male habiliments!' she said to her."

"What about that!" cried Lin Tai-yü, "why, she had scarcely been here with us a couple of days in the first moon of last year, when we sent and fetched her, that we had a fall of snow. You, venerable senior, and her maternal aunt had on that day, I remember so well, just returned from worshipping the images of our ancestors, and a brand-new deep red felt wrapper of yours, dear grandmother, had been lying over there, when suddenly it disappeared. But, lo, she it was who had put it on! Being, however, too large and too long for her, she took a couple of handkerchiefs, and fastened them round her waist. She was then trudging into the back court with the servant-girls to make snow men when she tripped and fell flat in front of the drain, and got covered all over with mud."

As she narrated this incident, every one recalled the circumstances to mind, and had a good laugh.

"Dame Chou," Pao-ch'ai smilingly inquired of nurse Chou, "is your young lady always as fond of pranks as ever or not?"

Nurse Chou then also gave a laugh.

"Pranks are nothing," Ying Ch'un smiled. "What I do detest is her fondness for tittle-tattle! I've never seen any one who, even when asleep, goes on chatter-chatter; now laughing, and now talking, as she does. Nor can I make out where she gets all those idle yarns of hers."

"I think she's better of late," interposed Madame Wang. "The other day some party or other came and they met; so she's to have a mother-in-law very soon; and can she still be comporting herself like that!"

"Are you going to stay to-day," dowager lady Chia then asked, "or going back home?"

Nurse Chou smiled. "Your venerable ladyship has not seen what an amount of clothes we've brought," she replied. "We mean, of course, to stay a couple of days."

"Is cousin Pao-yü not at home?" inquired Hsiang-yün."

"There she's again! She doesn't think of others," remarked Pao-ch'ai smiling significantly. "She only thinks of her cousin Pao-yü. They're both so fond of larks! This proves that she hasn't yet got rid of that spirit of mischief."

"You're all now grown up," observed old lady Chia; "and you shouldn't allude to infant names."

But while she was chiding them, they noticed Pao-yü arrive.

"Cousin Yün, have you come?" he smiled. "How is it that you wouldn't come the other day when some one was despatched to fetch you?"

"It's only a few minutes," Madame Wang said, "since our venerable senior called that one to task, and now here he comes and refers to names and surnames!"

"Your cousin Pao," ventured Lin Tai-yü, "has something good, which he has been waiting to give you."

"What good thing is it?" asked Hsiang-yün.

"Do you believe what she says?" observed Pao-yü laughingly. "But how many days is it that I have not seen you, and you've grown so much taller!"

"Is cousin Hsi Jen all right?" inquired Hsiang-yün.

"She's all right," answered Pao-yü. "Many thanks for your kind thought of her."

"I've brought something nice for her," resumed Hsiang-yün.

Saying this, she produced her handkerchief, tied into a knot.

"What's this something nice?" asked Pao-yü. "Wouldn't it have been better if you'd brought her a couple of those rings with streaked stones of the kind you sent the other day?"

"Why, what's this?" exclaimed Hsiang-yün laughing, opening, as she spoke, the handkerchief.

On close scrutiny, they actually found four streaked rings, similar to those she had previously sent, tied up in the same packet.

"Look here!" Lin Tai-yü smiled, "what a girl she is! Had you, when sending that fellow the other day to bring ours, given him these also to bring along with him, wouldn't it have saved trouble? Instead of that, here you fussily bring them yourself to-day! I presumed that it was something out of the way again; but is it really only these things? In very truth, you're a mere dunce!"

"It's you who behave like a dunce now!" Shih Hsiang-yün smiled.

"I'll speak out here and let every one judge for themselves who is the dunce. The servant, deputed to bring the things to you, had no need to open his mouth and say anything; for, as soon as they were brought in, it was of course evident, at a glance, that they were to be presented to you young ladies. But had he been the bearer of these things for them, I would have been under the necessity of explaining to him which was intended for this servant-girl, and which for that. Had the messenger had his wits about him, well and good; but had he been at all stupid he wouldn't have been able to remember so much as the names of the girls! He would have made an awful mess of it, and talked a lot of nonsense. So instead of being of any use he would have even muddled, hickledy-pickledy, your things. Had a female servant been despatched, it would have been all right. But as it happened, a servant-boy was again sent the other day, so how could he have mentioned the names of the waiting-girls? And by my bringing them in person to give them to them, doesn't it make things clearer?"

As she said this, she put down the four rings. "One is for sister Hsi Jen," she continued, "one is for sister Yüan Yang. One for sister Chin Ch'uan-erh, and one for sister P'ing Erh. They are only for these four girls; but would the servant-boys too forsooth have remembered them so clearly!"

At these words, the whole company smiled. "How really clear!" they cried.

"This is what it is to be able to speak!" Pao-yü put in. "She doesn't spare any one!"

Hearing this, Lin Tai-yü gave a sardonic smile. "If she didn't know how to use her tongue," she observed, "would she deserve to wear that unicorn of gold!"

While speaking, she rose and walked off.

Luckily, every one did not hear what she said. Only Hsüeh Pao-ch'ai pursed up her lips and laughed. Pao-yü, however, had overheard her remark, and he blamed himself for having once more talked in a heedless manner. Unawares his eye espied Pao-ch'ai much amused, and he too could not suppress a smile. But at the sight of Pao-yü in laughter, Pao-ch'ai hastily rose to her feet and withdrew. She went in search of Tai-yü, to have a chat and laugh with her.

"After you've had tea," old lady Chia thereupon said to Hsiang-yün, "you'd better rest a while and then go and see your sisters-in-law. Besides, it's cool in the garden, so you can walk about with your cousins."

Hsiang-yün expressed her assent, and, collecting the three rings, she wrapped them up, and went and lay down to rest. Presently, she got up with the idea of paying visits to lady Feng and her other relatives. Followed by a whole bevy of nurses and waiting-maids, she repaired into lady Feng's quarters on the off side. She bandied words with her for a while and then coming out she betook herself into the garden of Broad Vista, and called on Li Kung-ts'ai. But after a short visit, she turned her steps towards the I Hung court to look up Hsi Jen. "You people needn't," she said, turning her head round, "come along with me! You may go and see your friends and relatives. It will be quite enough if you simply leave Ts'ui Lü to wait upon me."

Hearing her wishes, each went her own way in quest of aunts, or sisters-in-law. There only remained but Hsiang-yün and Ts'ui Lü.

"How is it," inquired Ts'ui Lü, "that these lotus flowers have not yet opened?"

"The proper season hasn't yet arrived," rejoined Shih Hsiang-yün.

"They too," continued Ts'ui Lü, "resemble those in our pond; they are double flowers."

"These here," remarked Hsiang-yün, "are not however up to ours."

"They have over there," observed Ts'ui Lü, "a pomegranate tree, with four or five branches joined one to another, just like one storey raised above another storey. What trouble it must have cost them to rear!"

"Flowers and plants," suggested Shih Hsiang-yün, "are precisely like the human race. With sufficient vitality, they grow up in a healthy condition."

"I can't credit these words," replied Ts'ui Lü, twisting her face round. "If you maintain that they are like human beings, how is it that I haven't seen any person, with one head growing over another."

This rejoinder evoked a smile from Hsiang-yün. "I tell you not to talk," she cried, "but you will insist upon talking! How do you expect people to be able to answer every thing you say! All things, whether in heaven or on earth come into existence by the co-operation of the dual powers, the male and female. So all things, whether good or bad, novel or strange, and all those manifold changes and transformations arise entirely from the favourable or adverse influence exercised by the male and female powers. And though some things seldom seen by mankind might come to life, the principle at work is, after all, the same."

"In the face of these arguments," laughed Ts'ui Lü, "everything, from old till now, from the very creation itself, embodies a certain proportion of the Yin and Yang principles."

"You stupid thing!" exclaimed Hsiang-yün smiling, "the more you talk, the more stuff and nonsense falls from your lips! What about everything embodying a certain proportion of the principles Yin and Yang! Besides, the two words Yin and Yang are really one word; for when the Yang principle is exhausted, it becomes the Yin; and when the Yin is exhausted, it becomes Yang. And it isn't that, at the exhaustion of the Yin, another Yang comes into existence; and that, at the exhaustion of the Yang, a second Yin arises."

"This trash is sufficient to kill me!" ejaculated Ts'ui Lü. "What are the Yin and Yang? Why, they are without substance or form! But pray, Miss, tell me what sort of things these Yin and Yang can be!"

"The Yin and Yang," explained Hsiang-yün, "are no more than spirits, but anything affected by their influence at once assumes form. The heavens, for instance, are Yang, and the earth is Yin; water is Yin and fire is Yang; the sun is Yang and the moon Yin."

"Quite so! quite so!" cried out Ts'ui Lü, much amused by these explanations, "I've at length attained perception! It isn't strange then that people invariably call the sun 'T'ai-yang.' While astrologers keep on speaking of the moon as 'T'ai-yin-hsing,' or something like it. It must be on account of this principle."

"O-mi-to-fu!" laughed Hsiang-yün, "you have at last understood!"

"All these things possess the Yin and Yang; that's all right." T'sui Lü put in. "But is there any likelihood that all those mosquitoes, flees and worms, flowers, herbs, bricks and tiles have, in like manner, anything to do with the Yin and Yang?"

"How don't they!" exclaimed Hsiang-yün. "For example, even the leaves of that tree are distinguished by Yin and Yang. The side, which looks up and faces the sun, is called Yang; while that in the shade and looking downwards, is called Yin."

"Is it really so!" ejaculated T'sui Lü, upon hearing this; while she smiled and nodded her head. "Now I know all about it! But which is Yang and which Yin in these fans we're holding."

"This side, the front, is Yang," answered Hsiang-yün; "and that, the reverse, is Yin."

Ts'ui Lü went on to nod her head, and to laugh. She felt inclined to apply her questions to several other things, but as she could not fix her mind upon anything in particular, she, all of a sudden, drooped her head. Catching sight of the pendant in gold, representing a unicorn, which Hsiang-yün had about her person, she forthwith made allusion to it. "This, Miss," she said smiling, "cannot likely also have any Yin and Yang!"

"The beasts of the field and the birds of the air," proceeded Hsiang-yün, "are, the cock birds, Yang, and the hen birds, Yin. The females of beasts are Yin; and the males, Yang; so how is there none?"

"Is this male, or is this female?" inquired Ts'ui Lü.

"Ts'ui!" exclaimed Hsiang-yün, "what about male and female! Here you are with your nonsense again."

"Well, never mind about that," added Ts'ui Lü, "But how is it that all things have Yin and Yang, and that we human beings have no Yin and no Yang?"

Hsiang-yün then lowered her face. "You low-bred thing!" she exclaimed. "But it's better for us to proceed on our way, for the more questions you ask, the nicer they get."

"What's there in this that you can't tell me?" asked Ts'ui Lü, "But I know all about it, so there's no need for you to keep me on pins and needles."

Hsiang-yün blurted out laughing. "What do you know?" she said.

"That you, Miss, are Yang, and that I'm Yin," answered Ts'ui Lü.

Hsiang-yün produced her handkerchief, and, while screening her mouth with it, burst out into a loud fit of laughter.

"What I say must be right for you to laugh in this way," Ts'ui Lü observed.

"Perfectly right, perfectly right!" acquiesced Hsiang-yün.

"People say," continued Ts'ui Lü, "that masters are Yang, and that servant-girls are Yin; don't I even apprehend this primary principle?"

"You apprehend it thoroughly," responded Hsiang-yün laughingly. But while she was speaking, she espied, under the trellis with the cinnamon roses, something glistening like gold. "Do you see that? What is it?" Hsiang-yün asked pointing at it.

Hearing this, Ts'ui Lü hastily went over and picked up the object. While scrutinising it, she observed with a smile, "Let us find out whether it's Yin or Yang!"

So saying, she first laid hold of the unicorn, belonging to Shih
Hsiang-yün, and passed it under inspection.

Shih Hsiang-yün longed to be shown what she had picked up, but Ts'ui Lü would not open her hand.

"It's a precious gem," she smiled. "You mayn't see it, Miss. Where can it be from? How very strange it is! I've never seen any one in here with anything of the kind."

"Give it to me and let me look at it," retorted Hsiang-yün.

Ts'ui Lü stretched out her hand with a dash. "Yes, Miss, please look at it!" she laughed.

Hsiang-yün raised her eyes. She perceived, at a glance, that it was a golden unicorn, so beautiful and so bright; and so much larger and handsomer than the one she had on. Hsiang-yün put out her arm and, taking the gem in the palm of her hand, she fell into a silent reverie and uttered not a word. She was quite absent-minded when suddenly Pao-yü appeared in the opposite direction.

"What are you two," he asked smiling, "doing here in the sun? How is it you don't go and find Hsi Jen?"

Shih Hsiang-yün precipitately concealed the unicorn. "We were just going," she replied, "so let us all go together."

Conversing, they, in a company, wended their steps into the I Hung court. Hsi Jen was leaning on the balustrade at the bottom of the steps, her face turned to the breeze. Upon unexpectedly seeing Hsiang-yün arrive she with alacrity rushed down to greet her; and taking her hand in hers, they cheerfully canvassed the events that had transpired during their separation, while they entered the room and took a seat.

"You should have come earlier," Pao-yü said. "I've got something nice and was only waiting for you."

Saying this, he searched and searched about his person. After a long interval, "Ai-ya!" he ejaculated. "Have you perchance put that thing away?" he eagerly asked Hsi Jen.

"What thing?" inquired Hsi Jen.

"The unicorn," explained Pao-yü, "I got the other day."

"You've daily worn it about you, and how is it you ask me?" remarked Hsi
Jen.

As soon as her answer fell on his ear, Pao-yü clapped his hands. "I've lost it!" he cried. "Where can I go and look for it!" There and then, he meant to go and search in person; but Shih Hsiang-yün heard his inquiries, and concluded that it must be he who had lost the gem. "When did you too," she promptly smiled, "get a unicorn?"

"I got it the other day, after ever so much trouble;" rejoined Pao-yü, "but I can't make out when I can have lost it! I've also become quite addle-headed."

"Fortunately," smiled Shih Hsiang-yün, "it's only a sort of a toy!
Still, are you so careless?" While speaking, she flung open her hand.
"Just see," she laughed, "is it this or not?"

As soon as he saw it, Pao-yü was seized with unwonted delight. But, reader, if you care to know the cause of his delight, peruse the explanation contained in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXXII.

  Hsi Jen and Hsiang-yün tell their secret thoughts.
  Tai-yü is infatuated with the living Pao-yü.   

While trying to conceal her sense of shame and injury Chin Ch'uan is driven by her impetuous feelings to seek death.

But to resume our narrative. At the sight of the unicorn, Pao-yü was filled with intense delight. So much so, that he forthwith put out his hand and made a grab for it. "Lucky enough it was you who picked it up!" he said, with a face beaming with smiles. "But when did you find it?"

"Fortunately it was only this!" rejoined Shih Hsiang-yün laughing. "If you by and bye also lose your seal, will you likely banish it at once from your mind, and never make an effort to discover it?"

"After all," smiled Pao-yü, "the loss of a seal is an ordinary occurrence. But had I lost this, I would have deserved to die."

Hsi Jen then poured a cup of tea and handed it to Shih Hsiang-yün. "Miss Senior," she remarked smilingly, "I heard that you had occasion the other day to be highly pleased."

Shih Hsiang-yün flushed crimson. She went on drinking her tea and did not utter a single word.

"Here you are again full of shame!" Hsi Jen smiled. "But do you remember when we were living, about ten years back, in those warm rooms on the west side and you confided in me one evening, you didn't feel any shame then; and how is it you blush like this now?"

"Do you still speak about that!" exclaimed Shih Hsiang-yün laughingly. "You and I were then great friends. But when our mother subsequently died and I went home for a while, how is it you were at once sent to be with my cousin Secundus, and that now that I've come back you don't treat me as you did once?"

"Are you yet harping on this!" retorted Hsi Jen, putting on a smile. "Why, at first, you used to coax me with a lot of endearing terms to comb your hair and to wash your face, to do this and that for you. But now that you've become a big girl, you assume the manner of a young mistress towards me, and as you put on these airs of a young mistress, how can I ever presume to be on a familiar footing with you?"

"O-mi-to-fu," cried Shih Hsiang-yün. "What a false accusation! If I be guilty of anything of the kind, may I at once die! Just see what a broiling hot day this is, and yet as soon as I arrived I felt bound to come and look you up first. If you don't believe me, well, ask Lü Erh! And while at home, when did I not at every instant say something about you?"

Scarcely had she concluded than Hsi Jen and Pao-yü tried to soothe her. "We were only joking," they said, "but you've taken everything again as gospel. What! are you still so impetuous in your temperament!"

"You don't say," argued Shih Hsiang-yün, "that your words are hard things to swallow, but contrariwise, call people's temperaments impetuous!"

As she spoke, she unfolded her handkerchief and, producing a ring, she gave it to Hsi Jen.

Hsi Jen did not know how to thank her enough. "When;" she consequently smiled, "you sent those to your cousin the other day, I got one also; and here you yourself bring me another to-day! It's clear enough therefore that you haven't forgotten me. This alone has been quite enough to test you. As for the ring itself, what is its worth? but it's a token of the sincerity of your heart!"

"Who gave it to you?" inquired Shih Hsiang-yün.

"Miss Pao let me have it." replied Hsi Jen.

"I was under the impression," remarked Hsiang-yün with a sigh, "that it was a present from cousin Lin. But is it really cousin Pao, that gave it to you! When I was at home, I day after day found myself reflecting that among all these cousins of mine, there wasn't one able to compare with cousin Pao, so excellent is she. How I do regret that we are not the offspring of one mother! For could I boast of such a sister of the same flesh and blood as myself, it wouldn't matter though I had lost both father and mother!"

While indulging in these regrets, her eyes got quite red.

"Never mind! never mind!" interposed Pao-yü. "Why need you speak of these things!"

"If I do allude to this," answered Shih Hsiang-yün, "what does it matter? I know that weak point of yours. You're in fear and trembling lest your cousin Lin should come to hear what I say, and get angry with me again for eulogising cousin Pao! Now isn't it this, eh!"

"Ch'ih!" laughed Hsi Jen, who was standing by her. "Miss Yün," she said, "now that you've grown up to be a big girl you've become more than ever openhearted and outspoken."

"When I contend;" smiled Pao-yü, "that it is difficult to say a word to any one of you I'm indeed perfectly correct!"

"My dear cousin," observed Shih Hsiang-yün laughingly, "don't go on in that strain! You'll provoke me to displeasure. When you are with me all you are good for is to talk and talk away; but were you to catch a glimpse of cousin Lin, you would once more be quite at a loss to know what best to do!"

"Now, enough of your jokes!" urged Hsi Jen. "I have a favour to crave of you."

"What is it?" vehemently inquired Shih Hsiang-yün.

"I've got a pair of shoes," answered Hsi Jen, "for which I've stuck the padding together; but I'm not feeling up to the mark these last few days, so I haven't been able to work at them. If you have any leisure, do finish them for me."

"This is indeed strange!" exclaimed Shih Hsiang-yün. "Putting aside all the skilful workers engaged in your household, you have besides some people for doing needlework and others for tailoring and cutting; and how is it you appeal to me to take your shoes in hand? Were you to ask any one of those men to execute your work, who could very well refuse to do it?"

"Here you are in another stupid mood!" laughed Hsi Jen. "Can it be that you don't know that our sewing in these quarters mayn't be done by these needleworkers."

At this reply, it at once dawned upon Shih Hsiang-yün that the shoes must be intended for Pao-yü. "Since that be the case," she in consequence smiled; "I'll work them for you. There's however one thing. I'll readily attend to any of yours, but I will have nothing to do with any for other people."

"There you are again!" laughed Hsi Jen. "Who am I to venture to trouble you to make shoes for me? I'll tell you plainly, however, that they are not mine. But no matter whose they are, it is anyhow I who'll be the recipient of your favour; that is sufficient."

"To speak the truth," rejoined Shih Hsiang-yün, "you've put me to the trouble of working, I don't know how many things for you. The reason why I refuse on this occasion should be quite evident to you!"

"I can't nevertheless make it out!" answered Hsi Jen.

"I heard the other day," continued Shih Hsiang-yün, a sardonic smile on her lip, "that while the fan-case, I had worked, was being held and compared with that of some one else, it too was slashed away in a fit of high dudgeon. This reached my ears long ago, and do you still try to dupe me by asking me again now to make something more for you? Have I really become a slave to you people?

"As to what occurred the other day," hastily explained Pao-yü smiling,
"I positively had no idea that that thing was your handiwork."

"He never knew that you'd done it," Hsi Jen also laughed. "I deceived him by telling him that there had been of late some capital hands at needlework outside, who could execute any embroidery with surpassing beauty, and that I had asked them to bring a fan-case so as to try them and to see whether they could actually work well or not. He at once believed what I said. But as he produced the case and gave it to this one and that one to look at, he somehow or other, I don't know how, managed again to put some one's back up, and she cut it into two. On his return, however, he bade me hurry the men to make another; and when at length I explained to him that it had been worked by you, he felt, I can't tell you, what keen regret!"

"This is getting stranger and stranger!" said Shih Hsiang-yün. "It wasn't worth the while for Miss Lin to lose her temper about it. But as she plies the scissors so admirably, why, you might as well tell her to finish the shoes for you."

"She couldn't," replied Hsi Jen, "for besides other things our venerable lady is still in fear and trembling lest she should tire herself in any way. The doctor likewise says that she will continue to enjoy good health, so long as she is carefully looked after; so who would wish to ask her to take them in hand? Last year she managed to just get through a scented bag, after a whole year's work. But here we've already reached the middle of the present year, and she hasn't yet taken up any needle or thread!"

In the course of their conversation, a servant came and announced 'that the gentleman who lived in the Hsing Lung Street had come.' "Our master," he added, "bids you, Mr. Secundus, come out and greet him."

As soon as Pao-yü heard this announcement, he knew that Chia Yü-ts'un must have arrived. But he felt very unhappy at heart. Hsi Jen hurried to go and bring his clothes. Pao-yü, meanwhile, put on his boots, but as he did so, he gave way to resentment. "Why there's father," he soliloquised, "to sit with him; that should be enough; and must he, on every visit he pays, insist upon seeing me!"

"It is, of course, because you have such a knack for receiving and entertaining visitors that Mr. Chia Cheng will have you go out," laughingly interposed Shih Hsiang-yün from one side, as she waved her fan.

"Is it father's doing?" Pao-yü rejoined. "Why, it's he himself who asks that I should be sent for to see him."

"'When a host is courteous, visitors come often,'" smiled Hsiang-yün, "so it's surely because you possess certain qualities, which have won his regard, that he insists upon seeing you."

"But I am not what one would call courteous," demurred Pao-yü. "I am, of all coarse people, the coarsest. Besides, I do not choose to have any relations with such people as himself."

"Here's again that unchangeable temperament of yours!" laughed Hsiang-yün. "But you're a big fellow now, and you should at least, if you be loth to study and go and pass your examinations for a provincial graduate or a metropolitan graduate, have frequent intercourse with officers and ministers of state and discuss those varied attainments, which one acquires in an official career, so that you also may be able in time to have some idea about matters in general; and that when by and bye you've made friends, they may not see you spending the whole day long in doing nothing than loafing in our midst, up to every imaginable mischief."

"Miss," exclaimed Pao-yü, after this harangue, "pray go and sit in some other girl's room, for mind one like myself may contaminate a person who knows so much of attainments and experience as you do."

"Miss," ventured Hsi Jen, "drop this at once! Last time Miss Pao too tendered him this advice, but without troubling himself as to whether people would feel uneasy or not, he simply came out with an ejaculation of 'hai,' and rushed out of the place. Miss Pao hadn't meanwhile concluded her say, so when she saw him fly, she got so full of shame that, flushing scarlet, she could neither open her lips, nor hold her own counsel. But lucky for him it was only Miss Pao. Had it been Miss Lin, there's no saying what row there may not have been again, and what tears may not have been shed! Yet the very mention of all she had to tell him is enough to make people look up to Miss Pao with respect. But after a time, she also betook herself away. I then felt very unhappy as I imagined that she was angry; but contrary to all my expectations, she was by and bye just the same as ever. She is, in very truth, long-suffering and indulgent! This other party contrariwise became quite distant to her, little though one would have thought it of him; and as Miss Pao perceived that he had lost his temper, and didn't choose to heed her, she subsequently made I don't know how many apologies to him."

"Did Miss Lin ever talk such trash!" exclaimed Pao-yü. "Had she ever talked such stuff and nonsense, I would have long ago become chilled towards her."

"What you say is all trash!" Hsi Jen and Hsiang-yün remarked with one voice, while they shook their heads to and fro and smiled.

Lin Tai-yü, the fact is, was well aware that now that Shih Hsiang-yün was staying in the mansion, Pao-yü too was certain to hasten to come and tell her all about the unicorn he had got, so she thought to herself: "In the foreign traditions and wild stories, introduced here of late by Pao-yü, literary persons and pretty girls are, for the most part, brought together in marriage, through the agency of some trifling but ingenious nick-nack. These people either have miniature ducks, or phoenixes, jade necklets or gold pendants, fine handkerchiefs or elegant sashes; and they have, through the instrumentality of such trivial objects, invariably succeeded in accomplishing the wishes they entertained throughout their lives." When she recently discovered, by some unforeseen way, that Pao-yü had likewise a unicorn she began to apprehend lest he should make this circumstance a pretext to create an estrangement with her, and indulge with Shih Hsiang-yün as well in various free and easy flirtations and fine doings. She therefore quietly crossed over to watch her opportunity and take such action as would enable her to get an insight into his and her sentiments. Contrary, however, to all her calculations, no sooner did she reach her destination, than she overheard Shih Hsiang-yün dilate on the topic of experience, and Pao-yü go on to observe: "Cousin Lin has never indulged in such stuff and nonsense. Had she ever uttered any such trash, I would have become chilled even towards her!" This language suddenly produced, in Lin Tai-yü's mind, both surprise as well as delight; sadness as well as regret. Delight, at having indeed been so correct in her perception that he whom she had ever considered in the light of a true friend had actually turned out to be a true friend. Surprise, "because," she said to herself: "he has, in the presence of so many witnesses, displayed such partiality as to speak in my praise, and has shown such affection and friendliness for me as to make no attempt whatever to shirk suspicion." Regret, "for since," (she pondered), "you are my intimate friend, you could certainly well look upon me too as your intimate friend; and if you and I be real friends, why need there be any more talk about gold and jade? But since there be that question of gold and jade, you and I should have such things in our possession. Yet, why should this Pao-ch'ai step in again between us?" Sad, "because," (she reflected), "my father and mother departed life at an early period; and because I have, in spite of the secret engraven on my heart and imprinted on my bones, not a soul to act as a mentor to me. Besides, of late, I continuously feel confusion creep over my mind, so my disease must already have gradually developed itself. The doctors further state that my breath is weak and my blood poor, and that they dread lest consumption should declare itself, so despite that sincere friendship I foster for you, I cannot, I fear, last for very long. You are, I admit, a true friend to me, but what can you do for my unfortunate destiny!"

Upon reaching this point in her reflections, she could not control her tears, and they rolled freely down her cheeks. So much so, that when about to enter and meet her cousins, she experienced such utter lack of zest, that, while drying her tears she turned round, and wended her steps back in the direction of her apartments.

Pao-yü, meanwhile, had hurriedly got into his new costume. Upon coming out of doors, he caught sight of Lin Tai-yü, walking quietly ahead of him engaged, to all appearances, in wiping tears from her eyes. With rapid stride, he overtook her.

"Cousin Lin," he smiled, "where are you off to? How is it that you're crying again? Who has once more hurt your feelings?"

Lin Tai-yü turned her head round to look; and seeing that it was Pao-yü, she at once forced a smile. "Why should I be crying," she replied, "when there is no reason to do so?"

"Look here!" observed Pao-yü smilingly. "The tears in your eyes are not dry yet and do you still tell me a fib?"

Saying this, he could not check an impulse to raise his arm and wipe her eyes, but Lin Tai-yü speedily withdrew several steps backwards. "Are you again bent," she said, "upon compassing your own death! Then why do you knock your hands and kick your feet about in this wise?"

"While intent upon speaking, I forgot," smiled Pao-yü, "all about propriety and gesticulated, yet quite inadvertently. But what care I whether I die or live!"

"To die would, after all" added Lin Tai-yü, "be for you of no matter; but you'll leave behind some gold or other, and a unicorn too or other; and what would they do?"

This insinuation was enough to plunge Pao-yü into a fresh fit of exasperation. Hastening up to her: "Do you still give vent to such language?" he asked. "Why, it's really tantamount to invoking imprecations on me! What, are you yet angry with me!"

This question recalled to Lin Tai-yü's mind the incidents of a few days back, and a pang of remorse immediately gnawed her heart for having been again so indiscreet in her speech. "Now don't you distress your mind!" she observed hastily, smiling. "I verily said what I shouldn't! Yet what is there in this to make your veins protrude, and to so provoke you as to bedew your whole face with perspiration?"

While reasoning with him, she felt unable to repress herself, and, approaching him, she extended her hand, and wiped the perspiration from his face.

Pao-yü gazed intently at her for a long time. "Do set your mind at ease!" he at length observed.

At this remark, Lin Tai-yü felt quite nervous. "What's there to make my mind uneasy?" she asked after a protracted interval. "I can't make out what you're driving at; tell me what's this about making me easy or uneasy?"

Pao-yü heaved a sigh. "Don't you truly fathom the depth of my words?" he inquired. "Why, do you mean to say that I've throughout made such poor use of my love for you as not to be able to even divine your feelings? Well, if so, it's no wonder that you daily lose your temper on my account!"

"I actually don't understand what you mean by easy or uneasy," Lin
Tai-yü replied.

"My dear girl," urged Pao-yü, nodding and sighing. "Don't be making a fool of me! For if you can't make out these words, not only have I ever uselessly lavished affection upon you, but the regard, with which you have always treated me, has likewise been entirely of no avail! And it's mostly because you won't set your mind at ease that your whole frame is riddled with disease. Had you taken things easier a bit, this ailment of yours too wouldn't have grown worse from day to day!"

These words made Lin Tai-yü feel as if she had been blasted by thunder, or struck by lightning. But after carefully weighing them within herself, they seemed to her far more fervent than any that might have emanated from the depths of her own heart, and thousands of sentiments, in fact, thronged together in her mind; but though she had every wish to frame them into language, she found it a hard task to pronounce so much as half a word. All she therefore did was to gaze at him with vacant stare.

Pao-yü fostered innumerable thoughts within himself, but unable in a moment to resolve from which particular one to begin, he too absently looked at Tai-yü. Thus it was that the two cousins remained for a long time under the spell of a deep reverie.

An ejaculation of "Hai!" was the only sound that issued from Lin Tai-yü's lips; and while tears streamed suddenly from her eyes, she turned herself round and started on her way homeward.

Pao-yü jumped forward, with alacrity, and dragged her back. "My dear cousin," he pleaded, "do stop a bit! Let me tell you just one thing; after that, you may go."

"What can you have to tell me?" exclaimed Lin Tai-yü, who while wiping her tears, extricated her hand from his grasp. "I know." she cried, "all you have to say."

As she spoke, she went away, without even turning her head to cast a glance behind her.

As Pao-yü gazed at her receding figure, he fell into abstraction.

He had, in fact, quitted his apartments a few moments back in such precipitate hurry that he had omitted to take a fan with him: and Hsi Jen, fearing lest he might suffer from the heat, promptly seized one and ran to find him and give it to him. But upon casually raising her head, she espied Lin Tai-yü standing with him. After a time, Tai-yü walked away; and as he still remained where he was without budging, she approached him.

"You left," she said, "without even taking a fan with you. Happily I noticed it, and so hurried to catch you up and bring it to you."

But Pao-yü was so lost in thought that as soon as he caught Hsi Jen's voice, he made a dash and clasped her in his embrace, without so much as trying to make sure who she was.

"My dear cousin," he cried, "I couldn't hitherto muster enough courage to disclose the secrets of my heart; but on this occasion I shall make bold and give utterance to them. For you I'm quite ready to even pay the penalty of death. I have too for your sake brought ailments upon my whole frame. It's in here! But I haven't ventured to breathe it to any one. My only alternative has been to bear it patiently, in the hope that when you got all right, I might then perchance also recover. But whether I sleep, or whether I dream, I never, never forget you."

These declarations quite dumfoundered Hsi Jen. She gave way to incessant apprehensions. All she could do was to shout out: "Oh spirits, oh heaven, oh Buddha, he's compassing my death!" Then pushing him away from her, "what is it you're saying?" she asked. "May it be that you are possessed by some evil spirit! Don't you quick get yourself off?"

This brought Pao-yü to his senses at once. He then became aware that it was Hsi Jen, and that she had come to bring him a fan. Pao-yü was overpowered with shame; his whole face was suffused with scarlet; and, snatching the fan out of her hands, he bolted away with rapid stride.

When Hsi Jen meanwhile saw Pao-yü effect his escape, "Lin Tai-yü," she pondered, "must surely be at the bottom of all he said just now. But from what one can see, it will be difficult, in the future, to obviate the occurrence of some unpleasant mishap. It's sufficient to fill one with fear and trembling!"

At this point in her cogitations, she involuntarily melted into tears, so agitated was she; while she secretly exercised her mind how best to act so as to prevent this dreadful calamity.

But while she was lost in this maze of surmises and doubts, Pao-ch'ai unexpectedly appeared from the off side. "What!" she smilingly exclaimed, "are you dreaming away in a hot broiling sun like this?"

Hsi Jen, at this question, hastily returned her smiles. "Those two birds," she answered, "were having a fight, and such fun was it that I stopped to watch them."

"Where is cousin Pao off to now in such a hurry, got up in that fine attire?" asked Pao-ch'ai, "I just caught sight of him, as he went by. I meant to have called out and stopped him, but as he, of late, talks greater rubbish than ever, I didn't challenge him, but let him go past."

"Our master," rejoined Hsi Jen, "sent for him to go out."

"Ai-yah!" hastily exclaimed Pao-ch'ai, as soon as this remark reached her ears. "What does he want him for, on a scalding day like this? Might he not have thought of something and got so angry about it as to send for him to give him a lecture!"

"If it isn't this," added Hsi Jen laughing, "some visitor must, I presume, have come and he wishes him to meet him."

"With weather like this," smiled Pao-ch'ai, "even visitors afford no amusement! Why don't they, while this fiery temperature lasts, stay at home, where it's much cooler, instead of gadding about all over the place?"

"Could you tell them so?" smiled Hsi Jen.

"What was that girl Hsiang-yün doing in your quarters?" Pao-ch'ai then asked.

"She only came to chat with us on irrelevant matters." Hsi Jen replied smiling. "But did you see the pair of shoes I was pasting the other day? Well, I meant to ask her to-morrow to finish them for me."

Pao-chai, at these words, turned her head round, first on this side, and then on the other. Seeing that there was no one coming or going: "How is it," she smiled, "that you, who have so much gumption, don't ever show any respect for people's feelings? I've been of late keeping an eye on Miss Yün's manner, and, from what I can glean from the various rumours afloat, she can't be, in the slightest degree, her own mistress at home! In that family of theirs, so little can they stand the burden of any heavy expenses that they don't employ any needlework-people, and ordinary everyday things are mostly attended to by their ladies themselves. (If not), why is it that every time she has come to us on a visit, and she and I have had a chat, she at once broached the subject of their being in great difficulties at home, the moment she perceived that there was no one present? Yet, whenever I went on to ask her a few questions about their usual way of living, her very eyes grew red, while she made some indistinct reply; but as for speaking out, she wouldn't. But when I consider the circumstances in which she is placed, for she has certainly had the misfortune of being left, from her very infancy, without father and mother, the very sight of her is too much for me, and my heart begins to bleed within me."

"Quite so! Quite so!" observed Hsi Jen, clapping her hands, after listening to her throughout. "It isn't strange then if she let me have the ten butterfly knots I asked her to tie for me only after ever so many days, and if she said that they were coarsely done, but that I should make the best of them and use them elsewhere, and that if I wanted any nice ones, I should wait until by and bye when she came to stay here, when she would work some neatly for me. What you've told me now reminds me that, as she had found it difficult to find an excuse when we appealed to her, she must have had to slave away, who knows how much, till the third watch in the middle of the night. What a stupid thing I was! Had I known this sooner, I would never have told her a word about it."

"Last time;" continued Pao-ch'ai, "she told me that when she was at home she had ample to do, that she kept busy as late as the third watch, and that, if she did the slightest stitch of work for any other people, the various ladies, belonging to her family, did not like it."

"But as it happens," explained Hsi Jen, "that mulish-minded and perverse-tempered young master of ours won't allow the least bit of needlework, no matter whether small or large, to be made by those persons employed to do sewing in the household. And as for me, I have no time to turn my attention to all these things."

"Why mind him?" laughed Pao-ch'ai. "Simply ask some one to do the work and finish."

"How could one bamboozle him?" resumed Hsi Jen. "Why, he'll promptly find out everything. Such a thing can't even be suggested. The only thing I can do is to quietly slave away, that's all."

"You shouldn't work so hard," smiled Pao-ch'ai. "What do you say to my doing a few things for you?"

"Are you in real earnest!" ventured Hsi Jen smiling. "Well, in that case, it is indeed a piece of good fortune for me! I'll come over myself in the evening."

But before she could conclude her reply, she of a sudden noticed an old matron come up to her with precipitate step. "Where does the report come from," she interposed, "that Miss Chin Ch'uan-erh has gone, for no rhyme or reason, and committed suicide by jumping into the well?"

This bit of news startled Hsi Jen. "Which Chin Ch'uan-erh is it," she speedily inquired.

"Where are two Chin Ch'uan-erhs to be found!" rejoined the old matron. "It's the one in our Mistress,' Madame Wang's, apartments, who was the other day sent away for something or other, I don't know what. On her return home, she raised her groans to the skies and shed profuse tears, but none of them worried their minds about her, until, who'd have thought it, they could see nothing of her. A servant, however, went just now to draw water and he says that 'while he was getting it from the well in the south-east corner, he caught sight of a dead body, that he hurriedly called men to his help, and that when they fished it out, they unexpectedly found that it was she, but that though they bustled about trying to bring her round, everything proved of no avail'"

"This is odd!" Pao-ch'ai exclaimed.

The moment Hsi Jen heard the tidings, she shook her head and moaned. At the remembrance of the friendship, which had ever existed between them, tears suddenly trickled down her cheeks. And as for Pao-ch'ai, she listened to the account of the accident and then hastened to Madame Wang's quarters to try and afford her consolation.

Hsi Jen, during this interval, returned to her room. But we will leave her without further notice, and explain that when Pao-ch'ai reached the interior of Madame Wang's home, she found everything plunged in perfect stillness. Madame Wang was seated all alone in the inner chamber indulging her sorrow. But such difficulties did Pao-ch'ai experience to allude to the occurrence, that her only alternative was to take a seat next to her.

"Where do you come from?" asked Madame Wang.

"I come from inside the garden," answered Pao-ch'ai.

"As you come from the garden," Madame Wang inquired, "did you see anything of your cousin Pao-yü?"

"I saw him just now," Pao-ch'ai replied, "go out, dressed up in his fineries. But where he is gone to, I don't know."

"Have you perchance heard of any strange occurrence?" asked Madame Wang, while she nodded her head and sighed. "Why, Chin Ch'uan Erh jumped into the well and committed suicide."

"How is it that she jumped into the well when there was nothing to make her do so?" Pao-ch'ai inquired. "This is indeed a remarkable thing!"

"The fact is," proceeded Madame Wang, "that she spoilt something the other day, and in a sudden fit of temper, I gave her a slap and sent her away, simply meaning to be angry with her for a few days and then bring her in again. But, who could have ever imagined that she had such a resentful temperament as to go and drown herself in a well! And is not this all my fault?"

"It's because you are such a kind-hearted person, aunt," smiled Pao-ch'ai, "that such ideas cross your mind! But she didn't jump into the well when she was in a tantrum; so what must have made her do so was that she had to go and live in the lower quarters. Or, she might have been standing in front of the well, and her foot slipped, and she fell into it. While in the upper rooms, she used to be kept under restraint, so when this time she found herself outside, she must, of course, have felt the wish to go strolling all over the place in search of fun. How could she have ever had such a fiery disposition? But even admitting that she had such a temper, she was, after all, a stupid girl to do as she did; and she doesn't deserve any pity."

"In spite of what you say," sighed Madame Wang, shaking her head to and fro, "I really feel unhappy at heart."

"You shouldn't, aunt, distress your mind about it!" Pao-ch'ai smiled. "Yet, if you feel very much exercised, just give her a few more taels than you would otherwise have done, and let her be buried. You'll thus carry out to the full the feelings of a mistress towards her servant."

"I just now gave them fifty taels for her," pursued Madame Wang. "I also meant to let them have some of your cousin's new clothes to enshroud her in. But, who'd have thought it, none of the girls had, strange coincidence, any newly-made articles of clothing; and there were only that couple of birthday suits of your cousin Lin's. But as your cousin Lin has ever been such a sensitive child and has always too suffered and ailed, I thought it would be unpropitious for her, if her clothes were also now handed to people to wrap their dead in, after she had been told that they were given her for her birthday. So I ordered a tailor to get a suit for her as soon as possible. Had it been any other servant-girl, I could have given her a few taels and have finished. But Chin Ch'uan-erh was, albeit a servant-maid, nearly as dear to me as if she had been a daughter of mine."

Saying this, tears unwittingly ran down from her eyes.

"Aunt!" vehemently exclaimed Pao-ch'ai. "What earthly use is it of hurrying a tailor just now to prepare clothes for her? I have a couple of suits I made the other day and won't it save trouble were I to go and bring them for her? Besides, when she was alive, she used to wear my old clothes. And what's more our figures are much alike."

"What you say is all very well," rejoined Madame Wang; "but can it be that it isn't distasteful to you?"

"Compose your mind," urged Pao-ch'ai with a smile. "I have never paid any heed to such things."

As she spoke, she rose to her feet and walked away.

Madame Wang then promptly called two servants. "Go and accompany Miss
Pao!" she said.

In a brief space of time, Pao-ch'ai came back with the clothes, and discovered Pao-yü seated next to Madame Wang, all melted in tears. Madame Wang was reasoning with him. At the sight of Pao-ch'ai, she, at once, desisted. When Pao-ch'ai saw them go on in this way, and came to weigh their conversation and to scan the expression on their countenances, she immediately got a pretty correct insight into their feelings. But presently she handed over the clothes, and Madame Wang sent for Chin Ch'uan-erh's mother, to take them away.

But, reader, you will have to peruse the next chapter for further details.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

  A brother is prompted by ill-feeling to wag his tongue a bit.
  A depraved son receives heavy blows with a rattan cane.   

Madame Wang, for we shall now continue our story, sent for Chin Ch'uan-erh's mother. On her arrival, she gave her several hair-pins and rings, and then told her that she could invite several Buddhist priests as well to read the prayers necessary to release the spirit from purgatory. The mother prostrated herself and expressed her gratitude; after which, she took her leave.

Indeed, Pao-yü, on his return from entertaining Yü-ts'un, heard the tidings that Chin Ch'uan-erh had been instigated by a sense of shame to take her own life and he at once fell a prey to grief. So much so, that, when he came inside, and was again spoken to and admonished by Madame Wang, he could not utter a single word in his justification. But as soon as he perceived Pao-ch'ai make her appearance in the room, he seized the opportunity to scamper out in precipitate haste. Whither he was trudging, he himself had not the least idea. But throwing his hands behind his back and drooping his head against his chest, he gave way to sighs, while with slow and listless step he turned towards the hall. Scarcely, however, had he rounded the screen-wall, which stood in front of the door-way, when, by a strange coincidence, he ran straight into the arms of some one, who was unawares approaching from the opposite direction, and was just about to go towards the inner portion of the compound.

"Hallo!" that person was heard to cry out, as he stood still.

Pao-yü sustained a dreadful start. Raising his face to see, he discovered that it was no other than his father. At once, he unconsciously drew a long breath and adopted the only safe course of dropping his arms against his body and standing on one side.

"Why are you," exclaimed Chia Cheng, "drooping your head in such a melancholy mood, and indulging in all these moans? When Yü-ts'un came just now and he asked to see you, you only put in your appearance after a long while. But though you did come, you were not in the least disposed to chat with anything like cheerfulness and animation; you behaved, as you ever do, like a regular fool. I detected then in your countenance a certain expression of some hidden hankering and sadness; and now again here you are groaning and sighing! Does all you have not suffice to please you? Are you still dissatisfied? You've no reason to be like this, so why is it that you go on in this way?"

Pao-yü had ever, it is true, shown a glib tongue, but on the present occasion he was so deeply affected by Chin Ch'uan-erh's fate, and vexed at not being able to die that very instant and follow in her footsteps that although he was now fully conscious that his father was speaking to him he could not, in fact, lend him an ear, but simply stood in a timid and nervous mood. Chia Cheng noticed that he was in a state of trembling and fear, not as ready with an answer as he usually was, and his sorry plight somewhat incensed him, much though he had not at first borne him any ill-feeling. But just as he was about to chide him, a messenger approached and announced to him: "Some one has come from the mansion of the imperial Prince Chung Shun, and wishes to see you, Sir." At this announcement, surmises sprung up in Chia Cheng's mind. "Hitherto," he secretly mused, "I've never had any dealings with the Chung Shun mansion, and why is it that some one is despatched here to-day?" As he gave way to these reflections. "Be quick," he shouted, "and ask him to take a seat in the pavilion," while he himself precipitately entered the inner room and changed his costume. When he came out to greet the visitor, he discovered that it was the senior officer of the Chung Shun mansion. After the exchange of the salutations prescribed by the rites, they sat down and tea was presented. But before (Chia Cheng) had had time to start a topic of conversation, the senior officer anticipated him, and speedily observed: "Your humble servant does not pay this visit to-day to your worthy mansion on his own authority, but entirely in compliance with instructions received, as there is a favour that I have to beg of you. I make bold to trouble you, esteemed Sir, on behalf of his highness, to take any steps you might deem suitable, and if you do, not only will his highness remember your kindness, but even I, your humble servant, and my colleagues will feel extremely grateful to you."

Chia Cheng listened to him, but he could not nevertheless get a clue of what he was driving at. Promptly returning his smile, he rose to his feet. "You come, Sir," he inquired, "at the instance of his royal highness, but what, I wonder, are the commands you have to give me? I hope you will explain them to your humble servant, worthy Sir, in order to enable him to carry them out effectively."

The senior officer gave a sardonic smile.

"There's nothing to carry out," he said. "All you, venerable Sir, have to do is to utter one single word and the whole thing will be effected. There is in our mansion a certain Ch'i Kuan, who plays the part of young ladies. He hitherto stayed quietly in the mansion; but for the last three or five days or so no one has seen him return home. Search has been instituted in every locality, yet his whereabouts cannot be discovered. But throughout these various inquiries, eight out of the ten tenths of the inhabitants of the city have, with one consent, asserted that he has of late been on very friendly terms with that honourable son of yours, who was born with the jade in his mouth. This report was told your servant and his colleagues, but as your worthy mansion is unlike such residences as we can take upon ourselves to enter and search with impunity, we felt under the necessity of laying the matter before our imperial master. 'Had it been any of the other actors,' his highness also says, 'I wouldn't have minded if even one hundred of them had disappeared; but this Ch'i Kuan has always been so ready with pat repartee, so respectful and trustworthy that he has thoroughly won my aged heart, and I could never do without him.' He entreats you, therefore, worthy Sir, to, in your turn, plead with your illustrious scion, and request him to let Ch'i Kuan go back, in order that the feelings, which prompt the Prince to make such earnest supplications, may, in the first place, be satisfied: and that, in the next, your mean servant and his associates may be spared the fatigue of toiling and searching."

At the conclusion of this appeal, he promptly made a low bow. As soon as Chia Cheng found out the object of his errand, he felt both astonishment and displeasure. With all promptitude, he issued directions that Pao-yü should be told to come out of the garden. Pao-yü had no notion whatever why he was wanted. So speedily he hurried to appear before his father.

"What a regular scoundrel you are!" Chia Cheng exclaimed. "It is enough that you won't read your books at home; but will you also go in for all these lawless and wrongful acts? That Ch'i Kuan is a person whose present honourable duties are to act as an attendant on his highness the Prince of Chung Shun, and how extremely heedless of propriety must you be to have enticed him, without good cause, to come away, and thus have now brought calamity upon me?"

These reproaches plunged Pao-yü in a dreadful state of consternation.
With alacrity he said by way of reply: "I really don't know anything
about the matter! To what do, after all, the two words Ch'i Kuan refer,
I wonder! Still less, besides, am I aware what entice can imply!"

As he spoke, he started crying.

But before Chia Cheng could open his month to pass any further remarks, "Young gentleman," he heard the senior officer interpose with a sardonic smile: "you shouldn't conceal anything! if he be either hidden in your home, or if you know his whereabouts, divulge the truth at once; so that less trouble should fall to our lot than otherwise would. And will we not then bear in mind your virtue, worthy scion!"

"I positively don't know." Pao-yü time after time maintained. "There must, I fear, be some false rumour abroad; for I haven't so much as seen anything of him."

The senior officer gave two loud smiles, full of derision. "There's evidence at hand," he rejoined, "so if you compel me to speak out before your venerable father, won't you, young man, have to suffer the consequences? But as you assert that you don't know who this person is, how is it that that red sash has come to be attached to your waist?"

When Pao-yü caught this allusion, he suddenly felt quite out of his senses. He stared and gaped; while within himself, he argued: "How has he come to hear anything about this! But since he knows all these secret particulars, I cannot, I expect, put him off in other points; so wouldn't it be better for me to pack him off, in order to obviate his blubbering anything more?" "Sir," he consequently remarked aloud, "how is it that despite your acquaintance with all these minute details, you have no inkling of his having purchased a house? Are you ignorant of an essential point like this? I've heard people say that he's, at present, staying in the eastern suburbs at a distance of twenty li from the city walls; at some place or other called Tzu T'an Pao, and that he has bought there several acres of land and a few houses. So I presume he's to be found in that locality; but of course there's no saying."

"According to your version," smiled the senior officer, as soon as he heard his explanation, "he must for a certainty be there. I shall therefore go and look for him. If he's there, well and good; but if not, I shall come again and request you to give me further directions."

These words were still on his lips, when he took his leave and walked off with hurried step.

Chia Cheng was by this time stirred up to such a pitch of indignation that his eyes stared aghast, and his mouth opened in bewilderment; and as he escorted the officer out, he turned his head and bade Pao-yü not budge. "I have," (he said), "to ask you something on my return." Straightway he then went to see the officer off. But just as he was turning back, he casually came across Chia Huan and several servant-boys running wildly about in a body. "Quick, bring him here to me!" shouted Chia Cheng to the young boys. "I want to beat him."

Chia Huan, at the sight of his father, was so terrified that his bones mollified and his tendons grew weak, and, promptly lowering his head, he stood still."

"What are you running about for?" Chia Cheng asked. "These menials of yours do not mind you, but go who knows where, and let you roam about like a wild horse! Where are the attendants who wait on you at school?" he cried.

When Chia Huan saw his father in such a dreadful rage, he availed himself of the first opportunity to try and clear himself. "I wasn't running about just now" he said. "But as I was passing by the side of that well, I caught sight, for in that well a servant-girl was drowned, of a human head that large, a body that swollen, floating about in really a frightful way and I therefore hastily rushed past."

Chia Cheng was thunderstruck by this disclosure. "There's been nothing up, so who has gone and jumped into the well?" he inquired. "Never has there been anything of the kind in my house before! Ever since the time of our ancestors, servants have invariably been treated with clemency and consideration. But I expect that I must of late have become remiss in my domestic affairs, and that the managers must have arrogated to themselves the right of domineering and so been the cause of bringing about such calamities as violent deaths and disregard of life. Were these things to reach the ears of people outside, what will become of the reputation of our seniors? Call Chia Lien and Lai Ta here!" he shouted.

The servant-lads signified their obedience, with one voice. They were about to go and summon them, when Chia Huan hastened to press forward. Grasping the lapel of Chia Cheng's coat, and clinging to his knees, he knelt down. "Father, why need you be angry?" he said. "Excluding the people in Madame Wang's rooms, this occurrence is entirely unknown to any of the rest; and I have heard my mother mention…." At this point, he turned his head, and cast a glance in all four quarters.

Chia Cheng guessed his meaning, and made a sign with his eyes. The young boys grasped his purpose and drew far back on either side.

Chia Huan resumed his confidences in a low tone of voice. "My mother," he resumed, "told me that when brother Pao-yü was, the other day, in Madame Wang's apartments, he seized her servant-maid Chin Ch'uan-erh with the intent of dishonouring her. That as he failed to carry out his design, he gave her a thrashing, which so exasperated Chin Ch'uan-erh that she threw herself into the well and committed suicide…."

Before however he could conclude his account, Chia Cheng had been incensed to such a degree that his face assumed the colour of silver paper. "Bring Pao-yü here," he cried. While uttering these orders, he walked into the study. "If any one does again to-day come to dissuade me," he vociferated, "I shall take this official hat, and sash, my home and private property and surrender everything at once to him to go and bestow them upon Pao-yü; for if I cannot escape blame (with a son like the one I have), I mean to shave this scanty trouble-laden hair about my temples and go in search of some unsullied place where I can spend the rest of my days alone! I shall thus also avoid the crime of heaping, above, insult upon my predecessors, and, below, of having given birth to such a rebellious son."

At the sight of Chia Cheng in this exasperation, the family companions and attendants speedily realised that Pao-yü must once more be the cause of it, and the whole posse hastened to withdraw from the study, biting their fingers and putting their tongues out.

Chia Cheng panted with excitement. He stretched his chest out and sat bolt upright on a chair. His whole face was covered with the traces of tears. "Bring Pao-yü! Bring Pao-yü!" he shouted consecutively. "Fetch a big stick; bring a rope and tie him up; close all the doors! If any one does communicate anything about it in the inner rooms, why, I'll immediately beat him to death."

The servant-boys felt compelled to express their obedience with one consent, and some of them came to look after Pao-yü.

As for Pao-yü, when he heard Chia Cheng enjoin him not to move, he forthwith became aware that the chances of an unpropitious issue outnumbered those of a propitious one, but how could he have had any idea that Chia Huan as well had put in his word? There he still stood in the pavilion, revolving in his mind how he could get some one to speed inside and deliver a message for him. But, as it happened, not a soul appeared. He was quite at a loss to know where even Pei Ming could be. His longing was at its height, when he perceived an old nurse come on the scene. The sight of her exulted Pao-yü, just as much as if he had obtained pearls or gems; and hurriedly approaching her, he dragged her and forced her to halt. "Go in," he urged, "at once and tell them that my father wishes to beat me to death. Be quick, be quick, for it's urgent, there's no time to be lost."

But, first and foremost, Pao-yü's excitement was so intense that he spoke with indistinctness. In the second place, the old nurse was, as luck would have it, dull of hearing, so that she did not catch the drift of what he said, and she misconstrued the two words: "it's urgent," for the two representing jumped into the well. Readily smiling therefore: "If she wants to jump into the well, let her do so," she said. "What's there to make you fear, Master Secundus?"

"Go out," pursued Pao-yü, in despair, on discovering that she was deaf, "and tell my page to come."

"What's there left unsettled?" rejoined the old nurse. "Everything has been finished long ago! A tip has also been given them; so how is it things are not settled?"

Pao-yü fidgetted with his hands and feet. He was just at his wits' ends, when he espied Chia Cheng's servant-boys come up and press him to go out.

As soon as Chia Cheng caught sight of him, his eyes got quite red. Without even allowing himself any time to question him about his gadding about with actors, and the presents he gave them on the sly, during his absence from home; or about his playing the truant from school and lewdly importuning his mother's maid, during his stay at home, he simply shouted: "Gag his mouth and positively beat him till he dies!"

The servant-boys did not have the boldness to disobey him. They were under the necessity of seizing Pao-yü, of stretching him on a bench, and of taking a heavy rattan and giving him about ten blows.

Pao-yü knew well enough that he could not plead for mercy, and all he could do was to whimper and cry.

Chia Cheng however found fault with the light blows they administered to him. With one kick he shoved the castigator aside, and snatching the rattan into his own hands, he spitefully let (Pao-yü) have ten blows and more.

Pao-yü had not, from his very birth, experienced such anguish. From the outset, he found the pain unbearable; yet he could shout and weep as boisterously as ever he pleased; but so weak subsequently did his breath, little by little, become, so hoarse his voice, and so choked his throat that he could not bring out any sound.

The family companions noticed that he was beaten in a way that might lead to an unpropitious end, and they drew near with all despatch and made earnest entreaties and exhortations. But would Chia Cheng listen to them?

"You people," he answered, "had better ask him whether the tricks he has been up to deserve to be overlooked or not! It's you who have all along so thoroughly spoilt him as to make him reach this degree of depravity! And do you yet come to advise me to spare him? When by and bye you've incited him to commit parricide or regicide, you will at length, then, give up trying to dissuade me, eh?"

This language jarred on the ears of the whole party; and knowing only too well that he was in an exasperated mood, they fussed about endeavouring to find some one to go in and convey the news.

But Madame Wang did not presume to be the first to inform dowager lady Chia about it. Seeing no other course open to her, she hastily dressed herself and issued out of the garden. Without so much as worrying her mind as to whether there were any male inmates about or not, she straightway leant on a waiting-maid and hurriedly betook herself into the library, to the intense consternation of the companions, pages and all the men present, who could not manage to clear out of the way in time.

Chia Cheng was on the point of further belabouring his son, when at the sight of Madame Wang walking in, his temper flared up with such increased violence, just as fire on which oil is poured, that the rod fell with greater spite and celerity. The two servant-boys, who held Pao-yü down, precipitately loosened their grip and beat a retreat. Pao-yü had long ago lost all power of movement. Chia Cheng, however, was again preparing to assail him, when the rattan was immediately locked tightly by Madame Wang, in both her arms.

"Of course, of course," Chia Cheng exclaimed, "what you want to do to-day is to make me succumb to anger!"

"Pao-yü does, I admit, merit to be beaten," sobbed Madame Wang; "but you should also, my lord, take good care of yourself! The weather, besides, is extremely hot, and our old lady is not feeling quite up to the mark. Were you to knock Pao-yü about and kill him, it would not matter much; but were perchance our venerable senior to suddenly fall ill, wouldn't it be a grave thing?"

"Better not talk about such things!" observed Chia Cheng with a listless smile. "By my bringing up such a degenerate child of retribution I have myself become unfilial! Whenever I've had to call him to account, there has always been a whole crowd of you to screen him; so isn't it as well for me to avail myself of to-day to put an end to his cur-like existence and thus prevent future misfortune?"

As he spoke, he asked for a rope to strangle him; but Madame Wang lost no time in clasping him in her embrace, and reasoning with him as she wept. "My lord and master," she said, "it is your duty, of course, to keep your son in proper order, but you should also regard the relationship of husband and wife. I'm already a woman of fifty and I've only got this scapegrace. Was there any need for you to give him such a bitter lesson? I wouldn't presume to use any strong dissuasion; but having, on this occasion, gone so far as to harbour the design of killing him, isn't this a fixed purpose on your part to cut short my own existence? But as you are bent upon strangling him, be quick and first strangle me before you strangle him! It will be as well that we, mother and son, should die together, so that if even we go to hell, we may be able to rely upon each other!"

At the conclusion of these words, she enfolded Pao-yü in her embrace and raised her voice in loud sobs.

After listening to her appeal, Chia Cheng could not restrain a deep sigh; and taking a seat on one of the chairs, the tears ran down his cheeks like drops of rain.

But while Madame Wang held Pao-yü in her arms, she noticed that his face was sallow and his breath faint, and that his green gauze nether garments were all speckled with stains of blood, so she could not check her fingers from unloosening his girdle. And realising that from the thighs to the buttocks, his person was here green, there purple, here whole, there broken, and that there was, in fact, not the least bit, which had not sustained some injury, she of a sudden burst out in bitter lamentations for her offspring's wretched lot in life. But while bemoaning her unfortunate son, she again recalled to mind the memory of Chia Chu, and vehemently calling out "Chia Chu," she sobbed: "if but you were alive, I would not care if even one hundred died!"

But by this time, the inmates of the inner rooms discovered that Madame Wang had gone out, and Li Kung-ts'ai, Wang Hsi-feng and Ting Ch'un and her sisters promptly rushed out of the garden and came to join her.

While Madame Wang mentioned, with eyes bathed in tears, the name of Chia Chu, every one listened with composure, with the exception of Li Kung-ts'ai, who unable to curb her feelings also raised her voice in sobs. As soon as Chia Cheng heard her plaints, his tears trickled down with greater profusion, like pearls scattered about. But just as there seemed no prospect of their being consoled, a servant-girl was unawares heard to announce: "Our dowager lady has come!" Before this announcement was ended, her tremulous accents reached their ears from outside the window. "If you were to beat me to death and then despatch him," she cried, "won't you be clear of us!"

Chia Cheng, upon seeing that his mother was coming, felt distressed and pained. With all promptitude, he went out to meet her. He perceived his old parent, toddling along, leaning on the arm of a servant-girl, wagging her head and gasping for breath.

Chia Cheng drew forward and made a curtsey. "On a hot broiling day like this," he ventured, forcing a smile, "what made you, mother, get so angry as to rush over in person? Had you anything to enjoin me, you could have sent for me, your son, and given me your orders."

Old lady Chia, at these words, halted and panted. "Are you really chiding me?" she at the same time said in a stern tone. "It's I who should call you to task! But as the son, I've brought up, isn't worth a straw, to whom can I go and address a word?"

When Chia Cheng heard language so unlike that generally used by her, he immediately fell on his knees. While doing all in his power to contain his tears: "The reason why," he explained, "your son corrects his offspring is a desire to reflect lustre on his ancestors and splendour on his seniors; so how can I, your son, deserve the rebuke with which you greet me, mother?"

At this reply, old lady Chia spurted contemptuously. "I made just one remark," she added, "and you couldn't stand it, and can Pao-yü likely put up with that death-working cane? You say that your object in correcting your son is to reflect lustre on your ancestors and splendour on your seniors, but in what manner did your father correct you in days gone by?"

Saying this, tears suddenly rolled down from her eyes also.

Chia Cheng forced another smile. "Mother;" he proceeded, "you shouldn't distress yourself! Your son did it in a sudden fit of rage, but from this time forth I won't touch him again."

Dowager lady Chia smiled several loud sneering smiles. "But you shouldn't get into a huff with me!" she urged. "He's your son, so if you choose to flog him, you can naturally do so, but I cannot help thinking that you're sick and tired of me, your mother, of your wife and of your son, so wouldn't it be as well that we should get out of your way, the sooner the better, as we shall then be able to enjoy peace and quiet?"

So speaking, "Go and look after the chairs." she speedily cried to a servant. "I and your lady as well as Pao-yü will, without delay, return to Nanking."

The servant had no help but to assent.

Old lady Chia thereupon called Madame Wang over to her. "You needn't indulge in sorrow!" she exhorted her. "Pao-yü is now young, and you cherish him fondly; but does it follow that when in years to come he becomes an official, he'll remember that you are his mother? You mustn't therefore at present lavish too much of your affection upon him, so that you may by and bye, spare yourself, at least, some displeasure."

When these exhortations fell on Chia Cheng's ear, he instantly prostrated himself before her. "Your remarks mother," he observed, "cut the ground under your son's very feet."

"You distinctly act in a way," cynically smiled old lady Chia, "sufficient to deprive me of any ground to stand upon, and then you, on the contrary, go and speak about yourself! But when we shall have gone back, your mind will be free of all trouble. We'll see then who'll interfere and dissuade you from beating people!"

After this reply, she went on to give orders to directly get ready the baggage, carriages, chairs and horses necessary for their return.

Chia Cheng stiffly and rigidly fell on his knees, and knocked his head before her, and pleaded guilty. Dowager lady Chia then addressed him some words, and as she did so, she came to have a look at Pao-yü. Upon perceiving that the thrashing he had got this time was unlike those of past occasions, she experienced both pain and resentment. So clasping him in her arms, she wept and wept incessantly. It was only after Madame Wang, lady Feng and the other ladies had reasoned with her for a time that they at length gradually succeeded in consoling her.

But waiting-maids, married women, and other attendants soon came to support Pao-yü and take him away. Lady Feng however at once expostulated with them. "You stupid things," she exclaimed, won't you open your eyes and see! How ever could he be raised and made to walk in the state he's in! Don't you yet instantly run inside and fetch some rattan slings and a bench to carry him out of this on?

At this suggestion, the servants rushed hurry-scurry inside and actually brought a bench; and, lifting Pao-yü, they placed him on it. Then following dowager lady Chia, Madame Wang and the other inmates into the inner part of the building, they carried him into his grandmother's apartments. But Chia Cheng did not fail to notice that his old mother's passion had not by this time yet abated, so without presuming to consult his own convenience, he too came inside after them. Here he discovered how heavily he had in reality castigated Pao-yü. Upon perceiving Madame Wang also crying, with one breath, "My flesh;" and, with another, saying with tears: "My son, if you had died sooner, instead of Chu Erh, and left Chu Erh behind you, you would have saved your father these fits of anger, and even I would not have had to fruitlessly worry and fret for half of my existence! Were anything to happen now to make you forsake me, upon whom will you have me depend?" And then after heaping reproaches upon herself for a time, break out afresh in lamentations for her, unavailing offspring, Chia Cheng was much cut up and felt conscious that he should not with his own hand have struck his son so ruthlessly as to bring him to this state, and he first and foremost directed his attention to consoling dowager lady Chia.

"If your son isn't good," rejoined the old lady, repressing her tears, "it is naturally for you to exercise control over him. But you shouldn't beat him to such a pitch! Don't you yet bundle yourself away? What are you dallying in here for? Is it likely, pray, that your heart is not yet satisfied, and that you wish to feast your eyes by seeing him die before you go?"

These taunts induced Chia Cheng to eventually withdraw out of the room. By this time, Mrs. Hsüeh together with Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang Ling, Hsi Jen, Shih Hsiang-yün and his other cousins had also congregated in the apartments. Hsi Jen's heart was overflowing with grief; but she could not very well give expression to it. When she saw that a whole company of people shut him in, some pouring water over him, others fanning him; and that she herself could not lend a hand in any way, she availed herself of a favourable moment to make her exit. Proceeding then as far as the second gate, she bade the servant-boys go and fetch Pei-Ming. On his arrival, she submitted him to a searching inquiry. "Why is it," she asked, "that he was beaten just now without the least provocation; and that you didn't run over soon to tell me a word about it?"

"It happened," answered Pei Ming in great perplexity, "that I wasn't present. It was only after he had given him half the flogging that I heard what was going on, and lost no time in ascertaining what it was all about. It's on account of those affairs connected with Ch'i Kuan and that girl Chin Ch'uan."

"How did these things come to master's knowledge?" inquired Hsi Jen.

"As for that affair with Ch'i Kuan," continued Pei Ming, "it is very likely Mr. Hsüeh P'an who has let it out; for as he has ever been jealous, he may, in the absence of any other way of quenching his resentment, have instigated some one or other outside, who knows, to come and see master and add fuel to his anger. As for Chin Ch'uan-erh's affair it has presumably been told him by Master Tertius. This I heard from the lips of some person, who was in attendance upon master."

Hsi Jen saw how much his two versions tallied with the true circumstances, so she readily credited the greater portion of what was told her. Subsequently, she returned inside. Here she found a whole crowd of people trying to do the best to benefit Pao-yü. But after they had completed every arrangement, dowager lady Chia impressed on their minds that it would be better were they to carefully move him into his own quarters. With one voice they all signified their approval, and with a good deal of bustling and fussing, they speedily transferred Pao-yü into the I Hung court, where they stretched him out comfortably on his own bed. Then after some further excitement, the members of the family began gradually to disperse. Hsi Jen at last entered his room, and waited upon him with singleness of heart.

But, reader, if you feel any curiosity to hear what follows, listen to what you will find divulged in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

  Tai-yü loves Pao-yü with extreme affection; but, on account of this
      affection, her female cousin gets indignant.
  Hsüeh P'an commits a grave mistake; but Pao-ch'ai makes this mistake a
      pretext to tender advice to her brother.       

When Hsi Jen saw dowager lady Chia, Madame Wang and the other members of the family take their leave, our narrative says, she entered the room. and, taking a seat next to Pao-yü, she asked him, while she did all she could to hide her tears: "How was it that he beat you to such extremes?"

Pao-yü heaved a sigh. "It was simply," he replied, "about those trifles. But what's the use of your asking me about them? The lower part of my body is so very sore! Do look and see where I'm bruised!"

At these words, Hsi Jen put out her hand, and inserting it gently under his clothes, she began to pull down the middle garments. She had but slightly moved them, however, when Pao-yü ground his teeth and groaned "ai-ya." Hsi Jen at once stayed her hand. It was after three or four similar attempts that she, at length, succeeded in drawing them down. Then looking closely, Hsi Jen discovered that the upper part of his legs was all green and purple, one mass of scars four fingers wide, and covered with huge blisters.

Hsi Jen gnashed her teeth. "My mother!" she ejaculated, "how is it that he struck you with such a ruthless hand! Had you minded the least bit of my advice to you, things wouldn't have come to such a pass! Luckily, no harm was done to any tendon or bone; for had you been crippled by the thrashing you got, what could we do?"

In the middle of these remarks, she saw the servant-girls come, and they told her that Miss Pao-ch'ai had arrived. Hearing this, Hsi Jen saw well enough that she had no time to put him on his middle garments, so forthwith snatching a double gauze coverlet, she threw it over Pao-yü. This done, she perceived Pao-ch'ai walk in, her hands laden with pills and medicines.

"At night," she said to Hsi Jen, "take these medicines and dissolve them in wine and then apply them on him, and, when the fiery virus from that stagnant blood has been dispelled, he'll be all right again."

After these directions, she handed the medicines to Hsi Jen. "Is he feeling any better now?" she proceeded to inquired.

"Thanks!" rejoined Pao-yü. "I'm feeling better," he at the same time went on to say; after which, he pressed her to take a seat.

Pao-ch'ai noticed that he could open his eyes wide, that he could speak and that he was not as bad as he had been, and she felt considerable inward relief. But nodding her head, she sighed. "If you had long ago listened to the least bit of the advice tendered to you by people things would not have reached this climax to-day," she said. "Not to speak of the pain experienced by our dear ancestor and aunt Wang, the sight of you in this state makes even us feel at heart…."

Just as she had uttered half of the remark she meant to pass, she quickly suppressed the rest; and smitten by remorse for having spoken too hastily, she could not help getting red in the face and lowering her head.

Pao-yü was realising how affectionate, how friendly and how replete with deep meaning were the sentiments that dropped from her month, when, of a sudden, he saw her seal her lips and, flashing crimson, droop her head, and simply fumble with her girdle. Yet so fascinating was she in those timid blushes, which completely baffle description, that his feelings were roused within him to such a degree, that all sense of pain flew at once beyond the empyrean. "I've only had to bear a few blows," he reflected, "and yet every one of them puts on those pitiful looks sufficient to evoke love and regard; so were, after all, any mishap or untimely end to unexpectedly befall me, who can tell how much more afflicted they won't be! And as they go on in this way, I shall have them, were I even to die in a moment, to feel so much for me; so there will indeed be no reason for regret, albeit the concerns of a whole lifetime will be thus flung entirely to the winds!"

While indulging in these meditations, ha overheard Pao-ch'ai ask Hsi Jen: "How is it that he got angry, without rhyme or reason, and started beating him?" and Hsi Jen tell her, in reply, the version given to her by Pei Ming.

Pao-yü had, in fact, no idea as yet of what had been said by Chia Huan, and, when he heard Hsi Jen's disclosures, he eventually got to know what it was; but as it also criminated Hsüeh P'an, he feared lest Pao-ch'ai might feel unhappy, so he lost no time in interrupting Hsi Jen.

"Cousin Hsüeh," he interposed, "has never been like that; you people mustn't therefore give way to idle surmises!"

These words were enough to make Pao-ch'ai see that Pao-yü had thought it expedient to say something to stop Hsi Jen's mouth, apprehending that her suspicions might get roused; and she consequently secretly mused within herself: "He has been beaten to such a pitch, and yet, heedless of his own pains and aches, he's still so careful not to hurt people's feelings. But since you can be so considerate, why don't you take a little more care in greater concerns outside, so that your father should feel a little happier, and that you also should not have to suffer such bitter ordeals! But notwithstanding that the dread of my feeling hurt has prompted you to interrupt Hsi Jen in what she had to tell me, is it likely that I am blind to the fact that my brother has ever followed his fancies, allowed his passions to run riot, and never done a thing to exercise any check over himself? His temperament is such that he some time back created, all on account of that fellow Ch'in Chung, a rumpus that turned heaven and earth topsy-turvy; and, as a matter of course, he's now far worse than he was ever before!"

"You people," she then observed aloud, at the close of these cogitations, "shouldn't bear this one or that one a grudge. I can't help thinking that it's, after all, because of your usual readiness, cousin Pao-yü, to hobnob with that set that your father recently lost control over his temper. But assuming that my brother did speak in a careless manner and did casually allude to you cousin Pao-yü, it was with no design to instigate any one! In the first place, the remarks he made were really founded on actual facts; and secondly, he's not one to ever trouble himself about such petty trifles as trying to guard against animosities. Ever since your youth up, Miss Hsi, you've simply had before your eyes a person so punctilious as cousin Pao-yü, but have you ever had any experience of one like that brother of mine, who neither fears the powers in heaven or in earth, and who readily blurts out all he thinks?"

Hsi Jen, seeing Pao-yü interrupt her, at the bare mention of Hsüeh P'an, understood at once that she must have spoken recklessly and gave way to misgivings lest Pao-ch'ai might not have been placed in a false position, but when she heard the language used by Pao-ch'ai, she was filled with a keener sense of shame and could not utter a word. Pao-yü too, after listening to the sentiments, which Pao-ch'ai expressed, felt, partly because they were so magnanimous and noble, and partly because they banished all misconception from his mind, his heart and soul throb with greater emotion then ever before. When, however, about to put in his word, he noticed Pao-ch'ai rise to her feet.

"I'll come again to see you to-morrow," she said, "but take good care of yourself! I gave the medicines I brought just now to Hsi Jen; let her rub you with them at night and I feel sure you'll get all right."

With these recommendations, she walked out of the door.

Hsi Jen hastened to catch her up and escorted her beyond the court.
"Miss," she remarked, "we've really put you to the trouble of coming.
Some other day, when Mr. Secundus is well, I shall come in person to
thank you."

"What's there to thank me for?" replied Pao-ch'ai, turning her head round and smiling. "But mind, you advise him to carefully tend his health, and not to give way to idle thoughts and reckless ideas, and he'll recover. If there's anything he fancies to eat or to amuse himself with, come quietly over to me and fetch it for him. There will be no use to disturb either our old lady, or Madame Wang, or any of the others; for in the event of its reaching Mr. Chia Cheng's ear, nothing may, at the time, come of it; but if by and bye he finds it to be true, we'll, doubtless, suffer for it!"

While tendering this advice, she went on her way.

Hsi Jen retraced her steps and returned into the room, fostering genuine feelings of gratitude for Pao-ch'ai. But on entering, she espied Pao-yü silently lost in deep thought, and looking as if he were asleep, and yet not quite asleep, so she withdrew into the outer quarters to comb her hair and wash.

Pao-yü meanwhile lay motionless in bed. His buttocks tingled with pain, as if they were pricked with needles, or dug with knives; giving him to boot a fiery sensation just as if fire were eating into them. He tried to change his position a bit, but unable to bear the anguish, he burst into groans. The shades of evening were by this time falling. Perceiving that though Hsi Jen had left his side there remained still two or three waiting-maids in attendance, he said to them, as he could find nothing for them to do just then, "You might as well go and comb your hair and perform your ablutions; come in, when I call you."

Hearing this, they likewise retired. During this while, Pao-yü fell into a drowsy state. Chiang Yü-han then rose before his vision and told him all about his capture by men from the Chung Shun mansion. Presently, Chin Ch'uan-erh too appeared in his room bathed in tears, and explained to him the circumstances which drove her to leap into the well. But Pao-yü, who was half dreaming and half awake, was not able to give his mind to anything that was told him. Unawares, he became conscious of some one having given him a push; and faintly fell on his ear the plaintive tones of some person in distress. Pao-yü was startled out of his dreams. On opening his eyes, he found it to be no other than Lin Tai-yü. But still fearing that it was only a dream, he promptly raised himself, and drawing near her face he passed her features under a minute scrutiny. Seeing her two eyes so swollen, as to look as big as peaches, and her face glistening all over with tears: "If it is not Tai-yü," (he thought), "who else can it be?"

Pao-yü meant to continue his scrutiny, but the lower part of his person gave him such unbearable sharp twitches that finding it a hard task to keep up, he, with a shout of "Ai-yo," lay himself down again, as he heaved a sigh. "What do you once more come here for?" he asked. "The sun, it is true, has set; but the heat remaining on the ground hasn't yet gone, so you may, by coming over, get another sunstroke. Of course, I've had a thrashing but I don't feel any pains or aches. If I behave in this fashion, it's all put on to work upon their credulity, so that they may go and spread the reports outside in such a way as to reach my father's ear. Really it's all sham; so you mustn't treat it as a fact!"

Though Lin Tai-yü was not giving way at the time to any wails or loud sobs, yet the more she indulged in those suppressed plaints of hers, the worse she felt her breath get choked and her throat obstructed; so that when Pao-yü's assurances fell on her ear, she could not express a single sentiment, though she treasured thousands in her mind. It was only after a long pause that she at last could observe, with agitated voice: "You must after this turn over a new leaf."

At these words, Pao-yü heaved a deep sigh. "Compose your mind," he urged. "Don't speak to me like this; for I am quite prepared to even lay down my life for all those persons!"

But scarcely had he concluded this remark than some one outside the court was heard to say: "Our lady Secunda has arrived."

Lin Tai-yü readily concluded that it was lady Feng coming, so springing to her feet at once, "I'm off," she said; "out by the back-court. I'll look you up again by and bye."

"This is indeed strange!" exclaimed Pao-yü as he laid hold of her and tried to detain her. "How is it that you've deliberately started living in fear and trembling of her!"

Lin Tai-yü grew impatient and stamped her feet. "Look at my eyes!" she added in an undertone. "Must those people amuse themselves again by poking fun at me?"

After this response, Pao-yü speedily let her go.

Lin Tai-yü with hurried step withdrew behind the bed; and no sooner had she issued into the back-court, than lady Feng made her appearance in the room by the front entrance.

"Are you better?" she asked Pao-yü. "If you fancy anything to eat, mind you send some one over to my place to fetch it for you."

Thereupon Mrs. Hsüeh also came to pay him a visit. Shortly after, a messenger likewise arrived from old lady Chia (to inquire after him).

When the time came to prepare the lights, Pao-yü had a couple of mouthfuls of soup to eat, but he felt so drowsy and heavy that he fell asleep.

Presently, Chou Jui's wife, Wu Hsin-teng's wife and Cheng Hao-shih's wife, all of whom were old dames who frequently went to and fro, heard that Pao-yü had been flogged and they too hurried into his quarters.

Hsi Jen promptly went out to greet them. "Aunts," she whispered, smiling, "you've come a little too late; Master Secundus is sleeping." Saying this, she led them into the room on the opposite side, and, pressing then to sit down, she poured them some tea.

After sitting perfectly still for a time, "When Master Secundus awakes" the dames observed, "do send us word!"

Hsi Jen assured them that she would, and escorted them out. Just, however, as she was about to retrace her footsteps, she met an old matron, sent over by Madame Wang, who said to her: "Our mistress wants one of Master Secundus attendants to go and see her."

Upon hearing this message, Hsi Jen communed with her own thoughts. Then turning round, she whispered to Ch'ing Wen, She Yüeh, Ch'iu Wen, and the other maids: "Our lady wishes to see one of us, so be careful and remain in the room while I go. I'll be back soon."

At the close of her injunctions, she and the matron made their exit out of the garden by a short cut, and repaired into the drawing-room.

Madame Wang was seated on the cool couch, waving a banana-leaf fan. When she became conscious of her arrival: "It didn't matter whom you sent," she remarked, "any one would have done. But have you left him again? Who's there to wait on him?"

At this question, Hsi Jen lost no time in forcing a smile. "Master Secundus," she replied, "just now fell into a sound sleep. Those four or five girls are all right now, they are well able to attend to their master, so please, Madame, dispel all anxious thoughts! I was afraid that your ladyship might have some orders to give, and that if I sent any of them, they might probably not hear distinctly, and thus occasion delay in what there was to be done."

"There's nothing much to tell you," added Madame Wang. "I only wish to ask how his pains and aches are getting on now?"

"I applied on Mr. Secundus," answered Hsi Jen, "the medicine, which Miss Pao-ch'ai brought over; and he's better than he was. He was so sore at one time that he couldn't lie comfortably; but the deep sleep, in which he is plunged now, is a clear sign of his having improved."

"Has he had anything to eat?" further inquired Madame Wang.

"Our dowager mistress sent him a bowl of soup," Hsi Jen continued, "and of this he has had a few mouthfuls. He shouted and shouted that his mouth was parched and fancied a decoction of sour plums, but remembering that sour plums are astringent things, that he had been thrashed only a short time before, and that not having been allowed to groan, he must, of course, have been so hard pressed that fiery virus and heated blood must unavoidably have accumulated in the heart, and that were he to put anything of the kind within his lips, it might be driven into the cardiac regions and give rise to some serious illness; and what then would we do? I therefore reasoned with him for ever so long and at last succeeded in deterring him from touching any. So simply taking that syrup of roses, prepared with sugar, I mixed some with water and he had half a small cup of it. But he drank it with distaste; for, being surfeited with it, he found it neither scented nor sweet."

"Ai-yah!" ejaculated Madame Wang. "Why didn't you come earlier and tell me? Some one sent me the other day several bottles of scented water. I meant at one time to have given him some, but as I feared that it would be mere waste, I didn't let him have any. But since he is so sick and tired of that preparation of roses, that he turns up his nose at it, take those two bottles with you. If you just mix a teaspoonful of it in a cup of water, it will impart to it a very strong perfume."

So saying, she hastened to tell Ts'ai Yün to fetch the bottles of scented water, which she had received as a present a few days before.

"Let her only bring a couple of them, they'll be enough!" Hsi Jen chimed in. "If you give us more, it will be a useless waste! If it isn't enough, I can come and fetch a fresh supply. It will come to the same thing!"

Having listened to all they had to say, Ts'ai Yün left the room. After some considerable time, she, in point of fact, returned with only a couple of bottles, which she delivered to Hsi Jen.

On examination, Hsi Jen saw two small glass bottles, no more than three inches in size, with screwing silver stoppers at the top. On the gosling-yellow labels was written, on one: "Pure extract of olea fragrans," on the other, "Pure extract of roses."

"What fine things these are!" Hsi Jen smiled. "How many small bottles the like of this can there be?"

"They are of the kind sent to the palace," rejoined Madame Wang. "Didn't you notice that gosling-yellow slip? But mind, take good care of them for him; don't fritter them away!"

Hsi Jen assented. She was about to depart when Madame Wang called her back. "I've thought of something," she said, "that I want to ask you."

Hsi Jen hastily came back.

Madame Wang made sure that there was no one in the room. "I've heard a faint rumour," she then inquired, "to the effect that Pao-yü got a thrashing on this occasion on account of something or other which Huan-Erh told my husband. Have you perchance heard what it was that he said? If you happen to learn anything about it, do confide in me, and I won't make any fuss and let people know that it was you who told me."

"I haven't heard anything of the kind," answered Hsi Jen. "It was because Mr. Secundus forcibly detained an actor, and that people came and asked master to restore him to them that he got flogged."

"It was also for this," continued Madame Wang as she nodded her head, "but there's another reason besides."

"As for the other reason, I honestly haven't the least idea about it," explained Hsi Jen. "But I'll make bold to-day, and say something in your presence, Madame, about which I don't know whether I am right or wrong in speaking. According to what's proper…."

She had only spoken half a sentence, when hastily she closed her mouth again.

"You are at liberty to proceed," urged Madame Wang.

"If your ladyship will not get angry, I'll speak out," remarked Hsi Jen.

"Why should I get angry?" observed Madame Wang. "Proceed!"

"According to what's proper," resumed Hsi Jen, "our Mr. Secundus should receive our master's admonition, for if master doesn't hold him in check, there's no saying what he mightn't do in the future."

As soon as Madame Wang heard this, she clasped her hands and uttered the invocation, "O-mi-to-fu!" Unable to resist the impulse, she drew near Hsi Jen. "My dear child," she added, "you have also luckily understood the real state of things. What you told me is in perfect harmony with my own views! Is it likely that I don't know how to look after a son? In former days, when your elder master, Chu, was alive, how did I succeed in keeping him in order? And can it be that I don't, after all, now understand how to manage a son? But there's a why and a wherefore in it. The thought is ever present in my mind now, that I'm already a woman past fifty, that of my children there only remains this single one, that he too is developing a delicate physique, and that, what's more, our dear senior prizes him as much as she would a jewel, that were he kept under strict control, and anything perchance to happen to him, she might, an old lady as she is, sustain some harm from resentment, and that as the high as well as the low will then have no peace or quiet, won't things get in a bad way? So I feel prompted to spoil him by over-indulgence. Time and again I reason with him. Sometimes, I talk to him; sometimes, I advise him; sometimes, I cry with him. But though, for the time being, he's all right, he doesn't, later on, worry his mind in any way about what I say, until he positively gets into some other mess, when he settles down again. But should any harm befall him, through these floggings, upon whom will I depend by and bye?"

As she spoke, she could not help melting into tears.

At the sight of Madame Wang in this disconsolate mood, Hsi Jen herself unconsciously grew wounded at heart, and as she wept along with her, "Mr. Secundus," she ventured, "is your ladyship's own child, so how could you not love him? Even we, who are mere servants, think it a piece of good fortune when we can wait on him for a time, and all parties can enjoy peace and quiet. But if he begins to behave in this manner, even peace and quiet will be completely out of the question for us. On what day, and at what hour, don't I advise Mr. Secundus; yet I can't manage to stir him up by any advice! But it happens that all that crew are ever ready to court his friendship, so it isn't to be wondered that he is what he is! The truth is that he thinks the advice we give him is not right and proper! As you have to-day, Madame, alluded to this subject, I've got something to tell you which has weighed heavy on my mind. I've been anxious to come and confide it to your ladyship and to solicit your guidance, but I've been in fear and dread lest you should give way to suspicion. For not only would then all my disclosures have been in vain, but I would have deprived myself of even a piece of ground wherein my remains could be laid."

Madame Wang perceived that her remarks were prompted by some purpose. "My dear child," she eagerly urged; "go on, speak out! When I recently heard one and all praise you secretly behind your back, I simply fancied that it was because you were careful in your attendance on Pao-yü; or possibly because you got on well with every one; all on account of minor considerations like these; (but I never thought it was on account of your good qualities). As it happens, what you told me just now concerns, in all its bearings, a great principle, and is in perfect accord with my ideas, so speak out freely, if you have aught to say! Only let no one else know anything about it, that is all that is needed."

"I've got nothing more to say," proceeded Hsi Jen. "My sole idea was to solicit your advice, Madame, as to how to devise a plan to induce Mr. Secundus to move his quarters out of the garden by and bye, as things will get all right then."

This allusion much alarmed Madame Wang. Speedily taking Hsi Jen's hand in hers: "Is it likely," she inquired, "that Pao-yü has been up to any mischief with any one?"

"Don't be too suspicious!" precipitately replied Hsi Jen. "It wasn't at anything of the kind that I was hinting. I merely expressed my humble opinion. Mr. Secundus is a young man now, and the young ladies inside are no more children. More than that, Miss Lin and Miss Pao may be two female maternal first cousins of his, but albeit his cousins, there is nevertheless the distinction of male and female between them; and day and night, as they are together, it isn't always convenient, when they have to rise and when they have to sit; so this cannot help making one give way to misgivings. Were, in fact, any outsider to see what's going on, it would not look like the propriety, which should exist in great families. The proverb appositely says that: 'when there's no trouble, one should make provision for the time of trouble.' How many concerns there are in the world, of which there's no making head or tail, mostly because what persons do without any design is construed by such designing people, as chance to have their notice attracted to it, as having been designedly accomplished, and go on talking and talking till, instead of mending matters, they make them worse! But if precautions be not taken beforehand, something improper will surely happen, for your ladyship is well aware of the temperament Mr. Secundus has shown all along! Besides, his great weakness is to fuss in our midst, so if no caution be exercised, and the slightest mistake be sooner or later committed, there'll be then no question of true or false: for when people are many one says one thing and another, and what is there that the mouths of that mean lot will shun with any sign of respect? Why, if their hearts be well disposed, they will maintain that he is far superior to Buddha himself. But if their hearts be badly disposed, they will at once knit a tissue of lies to show that he cannot even reach the standard of a beast! Now, if people by and bye speak well of Mr. Secundus, we'll all go on smoothly with our lives. But should he perchance give reason to any one to breathe the slightest disparaging remark, won't his body, needless for us to say, be smashed to pieces, his bones ground to powder, and the blame, which he might incur, be made ten thousand times more serious than it is? These things are all commonplace trifles; but won't Mr. Secundus' name and reputation be subsequently done for for life? Secondly, it's no easy thing for your ladyship to see anything of our master. A proverb also says: 'The perfect man makes provision beforehand;' so wouldn't it be better that we should, this very minute, adopt such steps as will enable us to guard against such things? Your ladyship has much to attend to, and you couldn't, of course, think of these things in a moment. And as for us, it would have been well and good, had they never suggested themselves to our minds; but since they have, we should be the more to blame did we not tell you anything about them, Madame. Of late, I have racked my mind, both day and night on this score; and though I couldn't very well confide to any one, my lamp alone knows everything!"

After listening to these words, Madame Wang felt as if she had been blasted by thunder and struck by lightning; and, as they fitted so appositely with the incident connected with Chin Ch'uan-erh, her heart was more than ever fired with boundless affection for Hsi Jen. "My dear girl," she promptly smiled, "it's you, who are gifted with enough foresight to be able to think of these things so thoroughly. Yet, did I not also think of them? But so busy have I been these several times that they slipped from my memory. What you've told me to-day, however, has brought me to my senses! It's, thanks to you, that the reputation of me, his mother, and of him, my son, is preserved intact! I really never had the faintest idea that you were so excellent! But you had better go now; I know of a way. Yet, just another word. After your remarks to me, I'll hand him over to your charge; please be careful of him. If you preserve him from harm, it will be tantamount to preserving me from harm, and I shall certainly not be ungrateful to you for it."

Hsi Jen said several consecutive yes's, and went on her way. She got back just in time to see Pao-yü awake. Hsi Jen explained all about the scented water; and, so intensely delighted was Pao-yü, that he at once asked that some should be mixed and brought to him to taste. In very deed, he found it unusually fragrant and good. But as his heart was a prey to anxiety on Tai-yü's behalf, he was full of longings to despatch some one to look her up. He was, however, afraid of Hsi Jen. Readily therefore he devised a plan to first get Hsi Jen out of the way, by despatching her to Pao-ch'ai's, to borrow a book. After Hsi Jen's departure, he forthwith called Ch'ing Wen. "Go," he said, "over to Miss Lin's and see what she's up to. Should she inquire about me, all you need tell her is that I'm all right."

"What shall I go empty-handed for?" rejoined Ch'ing Wen. "If I were, at least, to give her a message, it would look as if I had gone for something."

"I have no message that you can give her," added Pao-yü.

"If it can't be that," suggested Ch'ing Wen; "I might either take something over or fetch something. Otherwise, when I get there, what excuse will I be able to find?"

After some cogitation, Pao-yü stretched out his hand and, laying hold of a couple of handkerchiefs, he threw them to Ch'ing Wen. "These will do," he smiled. "Just tell her that I bade you take them to her."

"This is strange!" exclaimed Ch'ing Wen. "Will she accept these two half worn-out handkerchiefs! She'll besides get angry and say that you were making fun of her."

"Don't worry yourself about that;" laughed Pao-yü. "She will certainly know what I mean."

Ch'ing Wen, at this rejoinder, had no help but to take the handkerchiefs and to go to the Hsiao Hsiang lodge, where she discovered Ch'un Hsien in the act of hanging out handkerchiefs on the railings to dry. As soon as she saw her walk in, she vehemently waved her hand. "She's gone to sleep!" she said. Ch'ing Wen, however, entered the room. It was in perfect darkness. There was not even so much as a lantern burning, and Tai-yü was already ensconced in bed. "Who is there?" she shouted.

"It's Ch'ing Wen!" promptly replied Ch'ing Wen.

"What are you up to?" Tai-yü inquired.

"Mr. Secundus," explained Ch'ing Wen, "sends you some handkerchiefs,
Miss."

Tai-yü's spirits sunk as soon as she caught her reply. "What can he have sent me handkerchiefs for?" she secretly reasoned within herself. "Who gave him these handkerchiefs?" she then asked aloud. "They must be fine ones, so tell him to keep them and give them to some one else; for I don't need such things at present."

"They're not new," smiled Ch'ing Wen. "They are of an ordinary kind, and old."

Hearing this, Lin Tai-yü felt downcast. But after minutely searching her heart, she at last suddenly grasped his meaning and she hastily observed: "Leave them and go your way."

Ch'ing Wen was compelled to put them down; and turning round, she betook herself back again. But much though she turned things over in her mind during the whole of her way homewards, she did not succeed in solving their import.

When Tai-yü guessed the object of the handkerchief, her very soul unawares flitted from her. "As Pao-yü has gone to such pains," she pondered, "to try and probe this dejection of mine, I have, on one hand, sufficient cause to feel gratified; but as there's no knowing what my dejection will come to in the future there is, on the other, enough to make me sad. Here he abruptly and deliberately sends me a couple of handkerchiefs; and, were it not that he has divined my inmost feelings, the mere sight of these handkerchiefs would be enough to make me treat the whole thing as ridiculous. The secret exchange of presents between us," she went on to muse, "fills me also with fears; and the thought that those tears, which I am ever so fond of shedding to myself, are of no avail, drives me likewise to blush with shame."

And by dint of musing and reflecting, her heart began, in a moment, to bubble over with such excitement that, much against her will, her thoughts in their superabundance rolled on incessantly. So speedily directing that a lamp should be lighted, she little concerned herself about avoiding suspicion, shunning the use of names, or any other such things, and set to work and rubbed the ink, soaked the pen, and then wrote the following stanzas on the two old handkerchiefs:

  Vain in my eyes the tears collect; those tears in vain they flow,
  Which I in secret shed; they slowly drop; but for whom though?
  The silk kerchiefs, which he so kindly troubled to give me,
  How ever could they not with anguish and distress fill me?   

The second ran thus:

  Like falling pearls or rolling gems, they trickle on the sly.
  Daily I have no heart for aught; listless all day am I.
  As on my pillow or sleeves' edge I may not wipe them dry,
  I let them dot by dot, and drop by drop to run freely.   

And the third:

  The coloured thread cannot contain the pearls cov'ring my face.
  Tears were of old at Hsiang Chiang shed, but faint has waxed each
      trace.
  Outside my window thousands of bamboos, lo, also grow,
  But whether they be stained with tears or not, I do not know.   

Lin Tai-yü was still bent upon going on writing, but feeling her whole body burn like fire, and her face scalding hot, she advanced towards the cheval-glass, and, raising the embroidered cover, she looked in. She saw at a glance that her cheeks wore so red that they, in very truth, put even the peach blossom to the shade. Yet little did she dream that from this date her illness would assume a more serious phase. Shortly, she threw herself on the bed, and, with the handkerchiefs still grasped in her hand, she was lost in a reverie.

Putting her aside, we will now take up our story with Hsi Jen. She went to pay a visit to Pao-ch'ai, but as it happened, Pao-ch'ai was not in the garden, but had gone to look up her mother. Hsi Jen, however, could not very well come back with empty hands so she waited until the second watch, when Pao-ch'ai eventually returned to her quarters.

Indeed, so correct an estimate of Hsüeh P'an's natural disposition did Pao-ch'ai ever have, that from an early moment she entertained within herself some faint suspicion that it must have been Hsüeh P'an, who had instigated some person or other to come and lodge a complaint against Pao-yü. And when she also unexpectedly heard Hsi Jen's disclosures on the subject, she became more positive in her surmises. The one, who had, in fact, told Hsi Jen was Pei Ming. But Pei Ming too had arrived at the conjecture in his own mind, and could not adduce any definite proof, so that every one treated his statements as founded partly on mere suppositions, and partly on actual facts; but, despite this, they felt quite certain that it was (Hsüeh P'an) who had intrigued.

Hsüeh P'an had always enjoyed this reputation; but on this particular instance the harm was not, actually, his own doing; yet as every one, with one consent, tenaciously affirmed that it was he, it was no easy matter for him, much though he might argue, to clear himself of blame.

Soon after his return, on this day, from a drinking bout out of doors, he came to see his mother; but finding Pao-ch'ai in her rooms, they exchanged a few irrelevant remarks. "I hear," he consequently asked, "that cousin Pao-yü has got into trouble; why is it?"

Mrs. Hsüeh was at the time much distressed on this score. As soon therefore as she caught this question, she gnashed her teeth with rage, and shouted: "You good-for-nothing spiteful fellow! It's all you who are at the bottom of this trouble; and do you still have the face to come and ply me with questions?"

These words made Hsüeh P'an wince. "When did I stir up any trouble?" he quickly asked.

"Do you still go on shamming!" cried Mrs. Hsüeh. "Every one knows full well that it was you, who said those things, and do you yet prevaricate?"

"Were every one," insinuated Hsüeh P'an, "to assert that I had committed murder, would you believe even that?"

"Your very sister is well aware that they were said by you." Mrs. Hsüeh continued, "and is it likely that she would accuse you falsely, pray?"

"Mother," promptly interposed Pao-ch'ai, "you shouldn't be brawling with brother just now! If you wait quietly, we'll find out the plain and honest truth." Then turning towards Hsüeh P'an: "Whether it's you, who said those things or not," she added, "it's of no consequence. The whole affair, besides, is a matter of the past, so what need is there for any arguments; they will only be making a mountain of a mole-hill! I have just one word of advice to give you; don't, from henceforward, be up to so much reckless mischief outside; and concern yourself a little less with other people's affairs! All you do is day after day to associate with your friends and foolishly gad about! You are a happy-go-lucky sort of creature! If nothing happens well and good; but should by and bye anything turn up, every one will, though it be none of your doing, imagine again that you are at the bottom of it! Not to speak of others, why I myself will be the first to suspect you!"

Hsüeh P'an was naturally open-hearted and plain-spoken, and could not brook anything in the way of innuendoes, so, when on the one side, Pao-ch'ai advised him not to foolishly gad about, and his mother, on the other, hinted that he had a foul tongue, and that he was the cause that Pao-yü had been flogged, he at once got so exasperated that he jumped about in an erratic manner and did all in his power, by vowing and swearing, to explain matters. "Who has," he ejaculated, heaping abuse upon every one, "laid such a tissue of lies to my charge! I'd like to take the teeth of that felon and pull them out! It's clear as day that they shove me forward as a target; for now that Pao-yü has been flogged they find no means of making a display of their zeal. But, is Pao-yü forsooth the lord of the heavens that because he has had a thrashing from his father, the whole household should be fussing for days? The other time, he behaved improperly, and my uncle gave him two whacks. But our venerable ancestor came, after a time, somehow or other, I don't know how, to hear about it, and, maintaining that it was all due to Mr. Chia Chen, she called him before her, and gave him a good blowing up. And here to-day, they have gone further, and involved me. They may drag me in as much as they like, I don't fear a rap! But won't it be better for me to go into the garden, and take Pao-yü and give him a bit of my mind and kill him? I can then pay the penalty by laying down my life for his, and one and all will enjoy peace and quiet!"

While he clamoured and shouted, he looked about him for the bar of the door, and, snatching it up, he there and then was running off, to the consternation of Mrs. Hsüeh, who clutched him in her arms. "You murderous child of retribution!" she cried. "Whom would you go and beat? come first and assail me?"

From excitement Hsüeh P'an's eyes protruded like copper bells. "What are you up to," he vociferated, "that you won't let me go where I please, and that you deliberately go on calumniating me? But every day that Pao-yü lives, the longer by that day I have to bear a false charge, so it's as well that we should both die that things be cleared up?"

Pao-ch'ai too hurriedly rushed forward. "Be patient a bit!" she exhorted him. "Here's mamma in an awful state of despair. Not to mention that it should be for you to come and pacify her, you contrariwise kick up all this rumpus! Why, saying nothing about her who is your parent, were even a perfect stranger to advise you, it would be meant for your good! But the good counsel she gave you has stirred up your monkey instead."

"From the way you're now speaking," Hsüeh P'an rejoined, "it must be you, who said that it was I; no one else but you!"

"You simply know how to feel displeased with me for speaking," argued Pao-ch'ai, "but you don't feel displeased with yourself for that reckless way of yours of looking ahead and not minding what is behind!"

"You now bear me a grudge," Hsüeh P'an added, "for looking to what is ahead and not to what is behind; but how is it you don't feel indignant with Pao-yü for stirring up strife and provoking trouble outside? Leaving aside everything else, I'll merely take that affair of Ch'i Kuan-erh's, which occurred the other day, and recount it to you as an instance. My friends and I came across this Ch'i Kuan-erh, ten times at least, but never has he made a single intimate remark to me, and how is it that, as soon as he met Pao-yü the other day, he at once produced his sash, and gave it to him, though he did not so much as know what his surname and name were? Now is it likely, forsooth, that this too was something that I started?"

"Do you still refer to this?" exclaimed Mrs. Hsüeh and Pao-ch'ai, out of patience. "Wasn't it about this that he was beaten? This makes it clear enough that it's you who gave the thing out."

"Really, you're enough to exasperate one to death!" Hsüeh P'an exclaimed. "Had you confined yourselves to saying that I had started the yarn, I wouldn't have lost my temper; but what irritates me is that such a fuss should be made for a single Pao-yü, as to subvert heaven and earth!"

"Who fusses?" shouted Pao-ch'ai. "You are the first to arm yourself to the teeth and start a row, and then you say that it's others who are up to mischief!"

Hsüeh P'an, seeing that every remark, made by Pao-ch'ai, contained so much reasonableness that he could with difficulty refute it, and that her words were even harder for him to reply to than were those uttered by his mother, he was consequently bent upon contriving a plan to make use of such language as could silence her and compel her to return to her room, so as to have no one bold enough to interfere with his speaking; but, his temper being up, he was not in a position to weigh his speech. "Dear Sister!" he readily therefore said, "you needn't be flying into a huff with me! I've long ago divined your feelings. Mother told me some time back that for you with that gold trinket, must be selected some suitor provided with a jade one; as such a one will be a suitable match for you. And having treasured this in your mind, and seen that Pao-yü has that rubbishy thing of his, you naturally now seize every occasion to screen him…."

However, before he could finish, Pao-ch'ai trembled with anger, and clinging to Mrs. Hsüeh, she melted into tears. "Mother," she observed, "have you heard what brother says, what is it all about?"

Hsüeh P'an, at the sight of his sister bathed in tears, became alive to the fact that he had spoken inconsiderately, and, flying into a rage, he walked away to his own quarters and retired to rest. But we can well dispense with any further comment on the subject.

Pao-ch'ai was, at heart, full of vexation and displeasure. She meant to give vent to her feelings in some way, but the fear again of upsetting her mother compelled her to conceal her tears. She therefore took leave of her parent, and went back all alone. On her return to her chamber, she sobbed and sobbed throughout the whole night. The next day, she got out of bed, as soon as it dawned; but feeling even no inclination to comb her chevelure or perform her ablutions, she carelessly adjusted her clothes and came out of the garden to see her mother.

As luck would have it, she encountered Tai-yü standing alone under the shade of the trees, who inquired of her: "Where she was off to?"

"I'm going home," Hsüeh Pao-ch'ai replied. And as she uttered these words, she kept on her way.

But Tai-yü perceived that she was going off in a disconsolate mood; and, noticing that her eyes betrayed signs of crying, and that her manner was unlike that of other days, she smilingly called out to her from behind: "Sister, you should take care of yourself a bit. Were you even to cry so much as to fill two water jars with tears, you wouldn't heal the wounds inflicted by the cane."

But as what reply Hsüeh Pao-ch'ai gave is not yet known to you, reader, lend an ear to the explanation contained in the next chapter.