Lin Tai-yu, hearing this, bade a waiting-maid fetch the chair from under the window where she herself often sat, and moving it to the lower side, she pressed Madame w.a.n.g into it. But goody Liu caught sight of the pencils and inkslabs, lying on the table placed next to the window, and espied the bookcase piled up to the utmost with books. "This must surely," the old dame e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "be some young gentleman's study!"

"This is the room of this granddaughter-in-law of mine," dowager lady Chia explained, smilingly pointing to Tai-yu.

Goody Liu scrutinised Lin Tai-yu with intentness for a while. "Is this anything like a young lady's private room?" she then observed with a smile. "Why, in very deed, it's superior to any first cla.s.s library!"

"How is it I don't see Pao-yu?" his grandmother Chia went on to inquire.

"He's in the boat, on the pond," the waiting-maids, with one voice, returned for answer.

"Who also got the boats ready?" old lady Chia asked.

"The loft was open just now so they were taken out," Li Wan said, "and as I thought that you might, venerable senior, feel inclined to have a row, I got everything ready."

After listening to this explanation, dowager lady Chia was about to pa.s.s some remark, but some one came and reported to her that Mrs. Hsueh had arrived. No sooner had old lady Chia and the others sprung to their feet than they noticed that Mrs. Hsueh had already made her appearance. While taking a seat: "Your venerable ladyship," she smiled, "must be in capital spirits to-day to have come at this early hour!"

"It's only this very minute that I proposed that any one who came late, should be fined," dowager lady Chia laughed, "and, who'd have thought it, here you, Mrs. Hsueh, arrive late!"

After they had indulged in good-humoured raillery for a time, old lady Chia's attention was attracted by the faded colour of the gauze on the windows, and she addressed herself to Madame w.a.n.g. "This gauze," she said, "may have been nice enough when it was newly pasted, but after a time nothing remained of kingfisher green. In this court too there are no peach or apricot trees and these bamboos already are green in themselves, so were this shade of green gauze to be put up again, it would, instead of improving matters, not harmonise with the surroundings. I remember that we had at one time four or five kinds of coloured gauzes for sticking on windows, so give her some to-morrow to change that on there."

"When I opened the store yesterday," hastily put in Lady Feng, "I noticed that there were still in those boxes, made of large planks, several rolls of 'cicada wing' gauze of silvery red colour. There were also several rolls with designs of twigs of flowers of every kind, several with 'the rolling clouds and bats' pattern, and several with figures representing hundreds of b.u.t.terflies, interspersed among flowers. The colours of all these were fresh, and the gauze supple. But I failed to see anything of the kind you speak of. Were two rolls taken (from those I referred to), and a couple of bed-covers of embroidered gauze made out of them, they would, I fancy, be a pretty sight!"

"Pshaw!" laughed old lady Chia, "every one says that there's nothing you haven't gone through and nothing you haven't seen, and don't you even know what this gauze is? Will you again brag by and bye, after this?"

Mrs. Hsueh and all the others smiled. "She may have gone through a good deal," they remarked, "but how can she ever presume to pit herself against an old lady like you? So why don't you, venerable senior, tell her what it is so that we too may be edified."

Lady Feng too gave a smile. "My dear ancestor," she pleaded, "do tell me what it is like."

Dowager lady Chia thereupon proceeded to enlighten Mrs. Hsueh and the whole company. "That gauze is older in years than any one of you," she said. "It isn't therefore to be wondered, if you make a mistake and take it for 'cicada wing' gauze. But it really bears some resemblance to it; so much so, indeed, that any one, not knowing the difference, would imagine it to be the 'cicada wing' gauze. Its true name, however, is 'soft smoke' silk."

"This is also a nice sounding name," lady Feng agreed. "But up to the age I've reached, I have never heard of any such designation, in spite of the many hundreds of specimens of gauzes and silks, I've seen."

"How long can you have lived?" old lady Chia added smilingly, "and how many kinds of things can you have met, that you indulge in this tall talk? Of this 'soft smoke' silk, there only exist four kinds of colours.

The one is red-blue; the other is russet; the other pine-green; the other silvery-red; and it's because, when made into curtains or stuck on window-frames, it looks from far like smoke or mist, that it is called 'soft smoke' silk. The silvery-red is also called 'russet shadow' gauze.

Among the gauzes used in the present day, in the palace above, there are none so supple and rich, light and closely-woven as this!"

"Not to speak of that girl Feng not having seen it," Mrs. Hsueh laughed, "why, even I have never so much as heard anything of it."

While the conversation proceeded in this strain, lady Feng soon directed a servant to fetch a roll. "Now isn't this the kind!" dowager lady Chia exclaimed. "At first, we simply had it stuck on the window frames, but we subsequently used it for covers and curtains, just for a trial, and really they were splendid! So you had better to-morrow try and find several rolls, and take some of the silvery-red one and have it fixed on the windows for her."

While lady Feng promised to attend to her commission, the party scrutinised it, and unanimously extolled it with effusion. Old goody Liu too strained her eyes and examined it, and her lips incessantly muttered Buddha's name. "We couldn't," she ventured, "afford to make clothes of such stuff, much though we may long to do so; and won't it be a pity to use it for sticking on windows?"

"But it doesn't, after all, look well, when made into clothes," old lady Chia explained.

Lady Feng hastily pulled out the lapel of the deep-red brocaded gauze jacket she had on, and, facing dowager lady Chia and Mrs. Hsueh, "Look at this jacket of mine," she remarked.

"This is also of first-rate quality!" old lady Chia and Mrs. Hsueh rejoined. "This is nowadays made in the palace for imperial use, but it can't possibly come up to this!"

"It's such thin stuff," lady Feng observed, "and do you still say that it was made in the palace for imperial use? Why, it doesn't, in fact, compare favourably with even this, which is worn by officials!"

"You'd better search again!" old lady Chia urged; "I believe there must be more of it! If there be, bring it all out, and give this old relative Liu a couple of rolls! Should there be any red-blue, I'll make a curtain to hang up. What remains can be matched with some lining, and cut into a few double waistcoats for the waiting-maids to wear. It would be sheer waste to keep these things, as they will be spoilt by the damp."

Lady Feng vehemently acquiesced; after which, she told a servant to take the gauze away.

"These rooms are so small!" dowager lady Chia then observed, smiling.

"We had better go elsewhere for a stroll."

"Every one says," old goody Liu put in, "that big people live in big houses! When I saw yesterday your main apartments, dowager lady, with all those large boxes, immense presses, big tables, and s.p.a.cious beds to match, they did, indeed, present an imposing sight! Those presses are larger than our whole house; yea loftier too! But strange to say there were ladders in the back court. 'They don't also,' I thought, 'go up to the house tops to sun things, so what can they keep those ladders in readiness for?' Well, after that, I remembered that they must be required for opening the presses to take out or put in things. And that without those ladders, how could one ever reach that height? But now that I've also seen these small rooms, more luxuriously got up than the large ones, and full of various articles, all so fascinating and hardly even known to me by name, I feel, the more I feast my eyes on them, the more unable to tear myself away from them."

"There are other things still better than this," lady Feng added. "I'll take you to see them all!"

Saying this, they straightway left the Hsiao Hsiang lodge. From a distance, they spied a whole crowd of people punting the boats in the lake.

"As they've got the boats ready," old lady Chia proposed, "we may as well go and have a row in them!"

As she uttered this suggestion, they wended their steps along the persicary-covered bank of the Purple Lily Isle. But before reaching the lake, they perceived several matrons advancing that way with large multi-coloured boxes in their hands, made all alike of twisted wire and inlaid with gold. Lady Feng hastened to inquire of Madame w.a.n.g where breakfast was to be served.

"Ask our venerable senior," Madame w.a.n.g replied, "and let them lay it wherever she pleases."

Old lady Chia overheard her answer, and turning her head round: "Miss Tertia," she said, "take the servants, and make them lay breakfast wherever you think best! We'll get into the boats from here."

Upon catching her senior's wishes, lady Feng retraced her footsteps, and accompanied by Li Wan, T'an Ch'un, Yuan Yang and Hu Po, she led off the servants, carrying the eatables, and other domestics, and came by the nearest way, to the Ch'iu Shuang library, where they arranged the tables in the Hsiao Ts'ui hall.

"We daily say that whenever the gentlemen outside have anything to drink or eat, they invariably have some one who can raise a laugh and whom they can chaff for fun's sake," Yuan Yang smiled, "so let's also to-day get a female family-companion."

Li Wan, being a person full of kindly feelings, did not fathom the insinuation, though it did not escape her ear. Lady Feng, however, thoroughly understood that she alluded to old goody Liu. "Let us too to-day," she smilingly remarked, "chaff her for a bit of fun!"

These two then began to mature their plans.

Li Wan chided them with a smile. "You people," she said, "don't know even how to perform the least good act! But you're not small children any more, and are you still up to these pranks? Mind, our venerable ancestor might call you to task!"

"That has nothing whatever to do with you, senior lady," Yuan Yang laughed, "it's my own look out!"

These words were still on her lips, when she saw dowager lady Chia and the rest of the company arrive. They each sat where and how they pleased. First and foremost, a waiting-maid brought two trays of tea.

After tea, lady Feng laid hold of a napkin, made of foreign cloth, in which were wrapped a handful of blackwood chopsticks, encircled with three rings, of inlaid silver, and distributed them on the tables, in the order in which they were placed.

"Bring that small hard-wood table over," old lady Chia then exclaimed; "and let our relative Liu sit next to me here!"

No sooner did the servants hear her order than they hurried to move the table to where she wanted it. Lady Feng, during this interval, made a sign with her eye to Yuan Yang. Yuan Yang there and then dragged goody Liu out of the hall and began to impress in a low tone of voice various things on her mind. "This is the custom which prevails in our household," she proceeded, "and if you disregard it we'll have a laugh at your expense!"

Having arranged everything she had in view, they at length returned to their places. Mrs. Hsueh had come over, after her meal, so she simply seated herself on one side and sipped her tea. Dowager lady Chia with Pao-yu, Hsiang-yun, Tai-yu and Pao-ch'ai sat at one table. Madame w.a.n.g took the girls, Ying Ch'un, and her sisters, and occupied one table. Old goody Liu took a seat at a table next to dowager lady Chia. Heretofore, while their old mistress had her repast, a young servant-maid usually stood by her to hold the finger bowl, yak-brush, napkin and other such necessaries, but Yuan Yang did not of late fulfil any of these duties, so when, on this occasion, she deliberately seized the yak-brush and came over and flapped it about, the servant-girls concluded that she was bent upon playing some tricks upon goody Liu, and they readily withdrew and let her have her way.

While Yuan Yang attended to her self-imposed duties, she winked at the old dame.

"Miss," goody Liu exclaimed, "set your mind at ease!" Goody Liu sat down at the table and took up the chopsticks, but so heavy and clumsy did she find them that she could not handle them conveniently. The fact is that lady Feng and Yuan Yang had put their heads together and decided to only a.s.sign to goody Liu a pair of antiquated four-cornered ivory chopsticks, inlaid with gold.

"These forks," shouted goody Liu, after scrutinising them, "are heavier than the very iron-lever over at my place. How ever can I move them about?"

This remark had the effect of making every one explode into a fit of laughter. But a married woman standing in the centre of the room, with a box in her hands, attracted their gaze. A waiting-maid went up to her and removed the cover of the box. Its contents were two bowls of eatables. Li Wan took one of these and placed it on dowager lady Chia's table, while lady Feng chose the bowl with pigeon's eggs and put it on goody Liu's table.