"Sister P'ing says," Hsiao Hung proceeded, "that our lady presents her compliments to your ladyship (widow Li) here-(_To lady Feng_) that our master Secundus has in fact not come home, and that albeit a delay of (a day) or two will take place (in the collection of the money), your ladyship should, she begs, set your mind at ease. (_To Li Wan_).

That when lady Quinta is somewhat better, our lady will let lady Quinta know and come along with her to see your ladyship. (_To lady Feng_). That lady Quinta sent a servant the day before yesterday to come over and say that our lady, your worthy maternal aunt, had despatched a letter to inquire after your ladyship's health; that she also wished to ask you, my lady, her worthy niece in here, for a couple of 'long-life-great-efficacy-full-of-every-virtue' pills; and that if you have any, they should, when our lady bids a servant come over, be simply given her to bring to our lady here, and that any one bound to-morrow for that side could then deliver them on her way to her ladyship, your aunt yonder, to take along with her."

"Ai-yo-yo!" exclaimed widow Li, before the close of the message. "It's impossible for me to make out what you're driving at! What a heap of ladyships and misters!"

"It's not to be wondered at that you can't make them out," interposed lady Feng laughing. "Why, her remarks refer to four or five distinct families."

While speaking, she again faced Hsiao Hung. "My dear girl," she smiled, "what a trouble you've been put to! But you speak decently, and unlike the others who keep on buzz-buzz-buzz, like mosquitoes! You're not aware, sister-in-law, that I actually dread uttering a word to any of the girls outside the few servant-girls and matrons in my own immediate service; for they invariably spin out, what could be condensed in a single phrase, into a long interminable yarn, and they munch and chew their words; and sticking to a peculiar drawl, they groan and moan; so much so, that they exasperate me till I fly into a regular rage. Yet how are they to know that our P'ing Erh too was once like them. But when I asked her: 'must you forsooth imitate the humming of a mosquito, in order to be accounted a handsome girl?' and spoke to her, on several occasions, she at length improved considerably."

"What a good thing it would be," laughed Li Kung-ts'ai, "if they could all be as smart as you are."

"This girl is first-rate!" rejoined lady Feng, "she just now delivered two messages. They didn't, I admit, amount to much, yet to listen to her, she spoke to the point."

"To-morrow," she continued, addressing herself to Hsiao Hung smilingly, "come and wait on me, and I'll acknowledge you as my daughter; and the moment you come under my control, you'll readily improve."

At this news, Hsiao Hung spurted out laughing aloud.

"What are you laughing for?" Lady Feng inquired. "You must say to yourself that I am young in years and that how much older can I be than yourself to become your mother; but are you under the influence of a spring dream? Go and ask all those people older than yourself. They would be only too ready to call me mother. But snapping my fingers at them, I to-day exalt you."

"I wasn't laughing about that," Hsiao Hung answered with a smiling face.

"I was amused by the mistake your ladyship made about our generations.

Why, my mother claims to be your daughter, my lady, and are you now going to recognise me too as your daughter?"

"Who's your mother?" Lady Feng exclaimed.

"Don't you actually know her?" put in Li Kung-ts'ai with a smile. "She's Lin Chih-hsiao's child."

This disclosure greatly surprised lady Feng. "What!" she consequently cried, "is she really his daughter?"

"Why Lin Chih-hsiao and his wife," she resumed smilingly, "couldn't either of them utter a sound if even they were p.r.i.c.ked with an awl.

I've always maintained that they're a well-suited couple; as the one is as deaf as a post, and the other as dumb as a mute. But who would ever have expected them to have such a clever girl! By how much are you in your teens?"

"I'm seventeen," replied Hsia Hung.

"What is your name?" she went on to ask.

"My name was once Hung Yu." Hsiao Hung rejoined. "But as it was a duplicate of that of Master Secundus, Mr. Pao-yu, I'm now simply called Hsiao Hung."

Upon hearing this explanation, lady Feng raised her eyebrows into a frown, and turning her head round: "It's most disgusting!" she remarked, "Those bearing the name Yu would seem to be very cheap; for your name is Yu, and so is also mine Yu. Sister-in-law," she then observed; "I never let you know anything about it, but I mentioned to her mother that Lai Ta's wife has at present her hands quite full, and that she hasn't either any notion as to who is who in this mansion. 'You had better,' (I said), 'carefully select a couple of girls for my service.' She a.s.sented unreservedly, but she put it off and never chose any. On the contrary, she sent this girl to some other place. But is it likely that she wouldn't have been well off with me?"

"Here you are again full of suspicion!" Li Wan laughed. "She came in here long before you ever breathed a word to her! So how could you bear a grudge against her mother?"

"Well, in that case," added lady Feng, "I'll speak to Pao-yu to-morrow, and induce him to find another one, and to allow this girl to come along with me. I wonder, however, whether she herself is willing or not?"

"Whether willing or not," interposed Hsiao Hung smiling, "such as we couldn't really presume to raise our voices and object. We should feel it our privilege to serve such a one as your ladyship, and learn a little how to discriminate when people raise or drop their eyebrows and eyes (with pleasure or displeasure), and reap as well some experience in such matters as go out or come in, whether high or low, great and small."

But during her reply, she perceived Madame w.a.n.g's waiting-maid come and invite lady Feng to go over. Lady Feng bade good-bye at once to Li Kung-ts'ai and took her departure.

Hsiao Hung then returned into the I Hung court, where we will leave her and devote our attention for the present to Lin Tai-yu.

As she had had but little sleep in the night, she got up the next day at a late hour. When she heard that all her cousins were collected in the park, giving a farewell entertainment for the G.o.d of flowers, she hastened, for fear people should laugh at her for being lazy, to comb her hair, perform her ablutions, and go out and join them. As soon as she reached the interior of the court, she caught sight of Pao-yu, entering the door, who speedily greeted her with a smile. "My dear cousin," he said, "did you lodge a complaint against me yesterday? I've been on pins and needles the whole night long."

Tai-yu forthwith turned her head away. "Put the room in order," she shouted to Tzu Chuan, "and lower one of the gauze window-frames. And when you've seen the swallows come back, drop the curtain; keep it down then by placing the lion on it, and after you have burnt the incense, mind you cover the censer."

So saying she stepped outside.

Pao-yu perceiving her manner, concluded again that it must be on account of the incident of the previous noon, but how could he have had any idea about what had happened in the evening? He kept on still bowing and curtseying; but Lin Tai-yu did not even so much as look at him straight in the face, but egressing alone out of the door of the court, she proceeded there and then in search of the other girls.

Pao-yu fell into a despondent mood and gave way to conjectures.

"Judging," he reflected, "from this behaviour of hers, it would seem as if it could not be for what transpired yesterday. Yesterday too I came back late in the evening, and, what's more, I didn't see her, so that there was no occasion on which I could have given her offence."

As he indulged in these reflections, he involuntarily followed in her footsteps to try and catch her up, when he descried Pao-ch'ai and T'an-ch'un on the opposite side watching the frolics of the storks.

As soon as they saw Tai-yu approach, the trio stood together and started a friendly chat. But noticing Pao-yu also come up, T'an Ch'un smiled.

"Brother Pao," she said, "are you all right. It's just three days that I haven't seen anything of you?"

"Are you sister quite well?" Pao-yu rejoined, a smile on his lips. "The other day, I asked news of you of our senior sister-in-law."

"Brother Pao," T'an Ch'un remarked, "come over here; I want to tell you something."

The moment Pao-yu heard this, he quickly went with her. Distancing Pao-ch'ai and Tai-yu, the two of them came under a pomegranate tree.

"Has father sent for you these last few days?" T'an Ch'un then asked.

"He hasn't," Pao-yu answered laughingly by way of reply.

"Yesterday," proceeded T'an Ch'un, "I heard vaguely something or other about father sending for you to go out."

"I presume," Pao-yu smiled, "that some one must have heard wrong, for he never sent for me."

"I've again managed to save during the last few months," added T'an Ch'un with another smile, "fully ten tiaos, so take them and bring me, when at any time you stroll out of doors, either some fine writings or some ingenious knicknack."

"Much as I have roamed inside and outside the city walls," answered Pao-yu, "and seen grand establishments and large temples, I've never come across anything novel or pretty. One simply sees articles made of gold, jade, copper and porcelain, as well as such curios for which we could find no place here. Besides these, there are satins, eatables, and wearing apparel."

"Who cares for such baubles!" exclaimed T'an Ch'un. "How could they come up to what you purchased the last time; that wee basket, made of willow twigs, that scent-box, scooped out of a root of real bamboo, that portable stove fashioned of glutinous clay; these things were, oh, so very nice! I was as fond of them as I don't know what; but, who'd have thought it, they fell in love with them and bundled them all off, just as if they were precious things."

"Is it things of this kind that you really want?" laughed Pao-yu. "Why, these are worth nothing! Were you to take a hundred cash and give them to the servant-boys, they could, I'm sure, bring two cart-loads of them."

"What do the servant-boys know?" T'an Ch'un replied. "Those you chose for me were plain yet not commonplace. Neither were they of coa.r.s.e make.

So were you to procure me as many as you can get of them, I'll work you a pair of slippers like those I gave you last time, and spend twice as much trouble over them as I did over that pair you have. Now, what do you say to this bargain?"

"Your reference to this," smiled Pao-yu, "reminds me of an old incident.

One day I had them on, and by a strange coincidence, I met father, whose fancy they did not take, and he inquired who had worked them. But how could I muster up courage to allude to the three words: my sister Tertia, so I answered that my maternal aunt had given them to me on the recent occasion of my birthday. When father heard that they had been given to me by my aunt, he could not very well say anything. But after a while, 'why uselessly waste,' he observed, 'human labour, and throw away silks to make things of this sort!' On my return, I told Hsi Jen about it. 'Never mind,' said Hsi Jen; but Mrs. Chao got angry. 'Her own brother,' she murmured indignantly, 'wears slipshod shoes and socks in holes, and there's no one to look after him, and does she go and work all these things!'"

T'an Ch'un, hearing this, immediately lowered her face. "Now tell me, aren't these words utter rot!" she shouted. "What am I that I have to make shoes? And is it likely that Huan Erh hasn't his own share of things! Clothes are clothes, and shoes and socks are shoes and socks; and how is it that any grudges arise in the room of a mere servant-girl and old matron? For whose benefit does she come out with all these things! I simply work a pair or part of a pair when I am at leisure, with time on my hands. And I can give them to any brother, elder or younger, I fancy; and who has a right to interfere with me? This is just another bit of blind anger!"

After listening to her, Pao-yu nodded his head and smiled. "Yet," he said, "you don't know what her motives may be. It's but natural that she should also cherish some expectations."

This apology incensed T'an Ch'un more than ever, and twisting her head round, "Even you have grown dull!" she cried. "She does, of course, indulge in expectations, but they are actuated by some underhand and paltry notion! She may go on giving way to these ideas, but I, for my part, will only care for Mr. Chia Cheng and Madame w.a.n.g. I won't care a rap for any one else. In fact, I'll be nice with such of my sisters and brothers, as are nice to me; and won't even draw any distinction between those born of primary wives and those of secondary ones. Properly speaking, I shouldn't say these things about her, but she's narrow-minded to a degree, and unlike what she should be. There's besides another ridiculous thing. This took place the last time I gave you the money to get me those trifles. Well, two days after that, she saw me, and she began again to represent that she had no money and that she was hard up. Nevertheless, I did not worry my brain with her goings on. But as it happened, the servant-girls subsequently quitted the room, and she at once started finding fault with me. 'Why,' she asked, 'do I give you my savings to spend and don't, after all, let Huan Erh have them and enjoy them?' When I heard these reproaches, I felt both inclined to laugh, and also disposed to lose my temper; but I there and then skedaddled out of her quarters, and went over to our Madame w.a.n.g."