The woman listened patiently to her arguments, but she could find no words to say anything to her by way of reply. Nor did she have the audacity to protract her stay. So flying into a huff, she took Chui Erh along with her, and there and then made her way out.

"Is it likely," nurse Sung hastily observed, "that a dame like you doesn't know what manners mean? Your daughter has been in these rooms for some time, so she should, when she is about to go, knock her head before the young ladies. She has no other means of showing her grat.i.tude. Not that they care much about such things. Yet were she to simply knock her head, she would acquit herself of a duty, if nothing more. But how is it that she says I'm going, and off she forthwith rushes?"

Chui Erh overheard these words, and felt under the necessity of turning back. Entering therefore the apartment, she prostrated herself before the two girls, and then she went in quest of Ch'iu Wen and her companions, but neither did they pay any notice whatever to her.

"Hai!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the woman, and heaving a sigh--for she did not venture to utter a word,--she walked off, fostering a grudge in her heart.

Ch'ing Wen had, while suffering from a cold, got into a fit of anger into the bargain, so instead of being better, she was worse, and she tossed and rolled until the time came for lighting the lamps. But the moment she felt more at ease, she saw Pao-yu come back. As soon as he put his foot inside the door, he gave way to an exclamation, and stamped his foot.

"What's the reason of such behaviour?" She Yueh promptly asked him.

"My old grandmother," Pao-yu explained, "was in such capital spirits that she gave me this coat to-day; but, who'd have thought it, I inadvertently burnt part of the back lapel. Fortunately however the evening was advanced so that neither she nor my mother noticed what had happened."

Speaking the while, he took it off. She Yueh, on inspection, found indeed a hole burnt in it of the size of a finger. "This," she said, "must have been done by some spark from the hand-stove. It's of no consequence."

Immediately she called a servant to her. "Take this out on the sly," she bade her, "and let an experienced weaver patch it. It will be all right then."

So saying, she packed it up in a wrapper, and a nurse carried it outside.

"It should be ready by daybreak," she urged. "And by no means let our old lady or Madame w.a.n.g know anything about it."

The matron brought it back again, after a protracted absence. "Not only," she explained; "have weavers, first-cla.s.s tailors, and embroiderers, but even those, who do women's work, been asked about it, and they all have no idea what this is made of. None of them therefore will venture to undertake the job."

"What's to be done?" She Yueh inquired. "But it won't matter if you don't wear it to-morrow."

"To-morrow is the very day of the anniversary," Pao-yu rejoined.

"Grandmother and my mother bade me put this on and go and pay my visit; and here I go and burn it, on the first day I wear it. Now isn't this enough to throw a damper over my good cheer?"

Ch'ing Wen lent an ear to their conversation for a long time, until unable to restrain herself, she twisted herself round. "Bring it here,"

she chimed in, "and let me see it! You haven't been lucky in wearing this; but never mind!"

These words were still on Ch'ing Wen's lips, when the coat was handed to her. The lamp was likewise moved nearer to her. With minute care she surveyed it. "This is made," Ch'ing Wen observed, "of gold thread, spun from peac.o.c.k's feathers. So were we now to also take gold thread, twisted from the feathers of the peac.o.c.k, and darn it closely, by imitating the woof, I think it will pa.s.s without detection."

"The peac.o.c.k-feather-thread is ready at hand," She Yueh remarked smilingly. "But who's there, exclusive of you, able to join the threads?"

"I'll, needless to say, do my level best to the very cost of my life and finish," Ch'ing Wen added.

"How ever could this do?" Pao-yu eagerly interposed. "You're just slightly better, and how could you take up any needlework?"

"You needn't go on in this chicken-hearted way!" Ch'ing Wen cried. "I know my own self well enough."

With this reply, she sat up, and, putting her hair up, she threw something over her shoulders. Her head felt heavy; her body light.

Before her eyes, confusedly flitted golden stirs. In real deed, she could not stand the strain. But when inclined to give up the work, she again dreaded that Pao-yu would be driven to despair. She therefore had perforce to make a supreme effort and, setting her teeth to, she bore the exertion. All the help she asked of She Yueh was to lend her a hand in reeling the thread.

Ch'ing Wen first took hold of a thread, and put it side by side (with those in the pelisse) to compare the two together. "This," she remarked, "isn't quite like them; but when it's patched up with it, it won't show very much."

"It will do very well," Pao-yu said. "Could one also go and hunt up a Russian tailor?"

Ch'ing Wen commenced by unst.i.tching the lining, and, inserting under it, a bamboo bow, of the size of the mouth of a tea cup, she bound it tight at the back. She then turned her mind to the four sides of the aperture, and these she loosened by scratching them with a golden knife. Making next two st.i.tches across with her needle, she marked out the warp and woof; and, following the way the threads were joined, she first and foremost connected the foundation, and then keeping to the original lines, she went backwards and forwards mending the hole; pa.s.sing her work, after every second st.i.tch, under further review. But she did not ply her needle three to five times, before she lay herself down on her pillow, and indulged in a little rest.

Pao-yu was standing by her side. Now he inquired of her: "Whether she would like a little hot water to drink." Later on, he asked her to repose herself. Now he seized a grey-squirrel wrapper and threw it over her shoulders. Shortly after, he took a pillow and propped her up. (The way he fussed) so exasperated Ch'ing Wen that she begged and entreated him to leave off.

"My junior ancestor!" she exclaimed, "do go to bed and sleep! If you sit up for the other half of the night, your eyes will to-morrow look as if they had been scooped out, and what good will possibly come out of that?"

Pao-yu realised her state of exasperation and felt compelled to come and lie down anyhow. But he could not again close his eyes.

In a little while, she heard the clock strike four, and just managing to finish she took a small tooth-brush, and rubbed up the pile.

"That will do!" She Yueh put in. "One couldn't detect it, unless one examined it carefully."

Pao-yu asked with alacrity to be allowed to have a look at it. "Really,"

he smiled, "it's quite the same thing."

Ch'ing Wen coughed and coughed time after time, so it was only after extreme difficulty that she succeeded in completing what she had to patch. "It's mended, it's true," she remarked, "but it does not, after all, look anything like it. Yet, I cannot stand the effort any more!"

As she shouted 'Ai-ya,' she lost control over herself, and dropped down upon the bed.

But, reader, if you choose to know anything more of her state, peruse the next chapter.

CHAPTER LIII.

In the Ning Kuo mansion sacrifices are offered to their ancestors on the last night of the year.

In the Jung Kuo mansion, a banquet is given on the evening of the 15th of the first moon.

But to resume our story. When Pao-yu saw that Ch'ing Wen had in her attempt to finish mending the peac.o.c.k-down cloak exhausted her strength and fatigued herself, he hastily bade a young maid help him ma.s.sage her; and setting to work they tapped her for a while, after which, they retired to rest. But not much time elapsed before broad daylight set in.

He did not however go out of doors, but simply called out that they should go at once and ask the doctor round.

Presently, Dr. w.a.n.g arrived. After feeling her pulse, his suspicions were aroused. "Yesterday," he said, "she was much better, so how is it that to-day she is instead weaker, and has fallen off so much? She must surely have had too much in the way of drinking or eating! Or she must have fatigued herself. A complaint arising from outside sources is, indeed, a light thing. But it's no small matter if one doesn't take proper care of one's self, as she has done after perspiring."

As he pa.s.sed these remarks, he walked out of the apartment, and, writing a prescription, he entered again.

When Pao-yu came to examine it, he perceived that he had eliminated the laxatives, and all the drugs, whose properties were to expel noxious influences, but added pachyma cocos, rhubarb, arolia edulis, and other such medicines, which could stimulate the system and strengthen her physique.

Pao-yu, on one hand, hastened to direct a servant to go and decoct them, and, on the other, he heaved a sigh. "What's to be done?" he exclaimed.

"Should anything happen to her, it will all be through the evil consequences of my shortcomings!"

"Hai!" cried Ch'ing Wen, from where she was reclining on her pillow.

"Dear Mr. Secundus, go and mind your own business! Have I got such a dreadful disease?"

Pao-yu had no alternative but to get out of the way. But in the afternoon, he gave out that he was not feeling up to the mark, and hurried back to her side again.

The symptoms of Ch'ing Wen's illness were, it is true, grave; yet fortunately for her she had ever had to strain her physical strength, and not to tax the energies of her mind. Furthermore, she had always been frugal in her diet, so that she had never sustained any harm from under or over-eating. The custom in the Chia mansion was that as soon as any one, irrespective of masters or servants, contracted the slightest chill or cough, quiet and starving should invariably be the main things observed, the treatment by medicines occupying only a secondary place.

Hence it was that when the other day she unawares felt unwell, she at once abstained from food during two or three days, while she carefully also nursed herself by taking proper medicines. And although she recently taxed her strength a little too much, she gradually succeeded, by attending with extra care to her health for another few days, in bringing about her complete recovery.