Mrs. Hsueh lost no time in supporting and laying him down. "Mind you tell me whatever may take your fancy!" she proceeded.

"If I do fancy anything," retorted Pao-yu smilingly, "I shall certainly send to you, aunt, for it."

"What would you like to eat," likewise inquired Madame w.a.n.g, "so that I may, on my return, send it round to you?"

"There's nothing that I care for," smiled Pao-yu, "though the soup made for me the other day, with young lotus leaves, and small lotus cores was, I thought, somewhat nice."

"From what I hear, its flavour is nothing very grand," lady Feng chimed in laughingly, from where she stood on one side. "It involves, however, a good deal of trouble to concoct; and here you deliberately go and fancy this very thing."

"Go and get it ready!" cried dowager lady Chia several successive times.

"Venerable ancestor," urged lady Feng with a smile, "don't you bother yourself about it! Let me try and remember who can have put the moulds away!" Then turning her head round, "Go and bid," she enjoined an old matron, "the chief in the cook-house go and apply for them!"

After a considerable lapse of time, the matron returned. "The chief in the cook-house," she explained, "says that the four sets of moulds for soups have all been handed up."

Upon hearing this, lady Feng thought again for a while. "Yes, I remember," she afterwards remarked, "they were handed up, but I can't recollect to whom they were given. Possibly they're in the tea-room."

Thereupon, she also despatched a servant to go and inquire of the keeper of the tea-room about them; but he too had not got them; and it was subsequently the butler, entrusted with the care of the gold and silver articles, who brought them round.

Mrs. Hsueh was the first to take them and examine them. What, in fact, struck her gaze was a small box, the contents of which were four sets of silver moulds. Each of these was over a foot long, and one square inch (in breadth). On the top, holes were bored of the size of beans. Some resembled chrysanthemums, others plum blossom. Some were in the shape of lotus seed-cases, others like water chestnuts. They numbered in all thirty or forty kinds, and were ingeniously executed.

"In your mansion," she felt impelled to observe smilingly to old lady Chia and Madame w.a.n.g, "everything has been amply provided for! Have you got all these things to prepare a plate of soup with! Hadn't you told me, and I happened to see them, I wouldn't have been able to make out what they were intended for!"

Lady Feng did not allow time to any one to put in her word. "Aunt," she said, "how could you ever have divined that these were used last year for the imperial viands! They thought of a way by which they devised, somehow or other, I can't tell how, some dough shapes, which borrow a little of the pure fragrance of the new lotus leaves. But as all mainly depends upon the quality of the soup, they're not, after all, of much use! Yet who often goes in for such soup! It was made once only, and that at the time when the moulds were brought; and how is it that he has come to think of it to-day?" So speaking, she took (the moulds), and handed them to a married woman, to go and issue directions to the people in the cook-house to procure at once several fowls, and to add other ingredients besides and prepare ten bowls of soup.

"What do you want all that lot for?" observed Madame w.a.n.g.

"There's good reason for it," answered lady Feng. "A dish of this kind isn't, at ordinary times, very often made, and were, now that brother Pao-yu has alluded to it, only sufficient prepared for him, and none for you, dear senior, you, aunt, and you, Madame w.a.n.g, it won't be quite the thing! So isn't it better that this opportunity should be availed of to get ready a whole supply so that every one should partake of some, and that even I should, through my reliance on your kind favour, taste this novel kind of relish."

"You are sharper than a monkey!" Dowager lady Chia laughingly exclaimed in reply to her proposal. "You make use of public money to confer boons upon people."

This remark evoked general laughter.

"This is a mere bagatelle!" eagerly laughed lady Feng. "Even I can afford to stand you such a small treat!" Then turning her head round, "Tell them in the cook-house," she said to a married woman, "to please make an extra supply, and that they'll get the money from me."

The matron a.s.sented and went out of the room.

Pao-ch'ai, who was standing near, thereupon interposed with a smile.

"During the few years that have gone by since I've come here, I've carefully noticed that sister-in-law Secunda, cannot, with all her ac.u.men, outwit our venerable ancestor."

"My dear child!" forthwith replied old lady Chia at these words. "I'm now quite an old woman, and how can there still remain any wit in me!

When I was, long ago, of your manlike cousin Feng's age, I had far more wits about me than she has! Albeit she now avers that she can't reach our standard, she's good enough; and compared with your aunt w.a.n.g, why, she's infinitely superior. Your aunt, poor thing, won't speak much!

She's like a block of wood; and when with her father and mother-in-law, she won't show herself off to advantage. But that girl Feng has a sharp tongue, so is it a wonder if people take to her."

"From what you say," insinuated Pao-yu with a smile, "those who don't talk much are not loved."

"Those who don't speak much," resumed dowager lady Chia, "possess the endearing quality of reserve. But among those, with glib tongues, there's also a certain despicable lot; thus it's better, in a word, not to have too much to say for one's self."

"Quite so," smiled Pao-yu, "yet though senior sister-in-law Chia Chu doesn't, I must confess, talk much, you, venerable ancestor, treat her just as you do cousin Feng. But if you maintain that those alone, who can talk, are worthy of love, then among all these young ladies, sister Feng and cousin Lin are the only ones good enough to be loved."

"With regard to the young ladies," remarked dowager lady Chia, "it isn't that I have any wish to flatter your aunt Hsueh in her presence, but it is a positive and incontestable fact that there isn't, beginning from the four girls in our household, a single one able to hold a candle to that girl Pao-ch'ai."

At these words, Mrs. Hsueh promptly smiled. "Dear venerable senior!" she said, "you're rather partial in your verdict."

"Our dear senior," vehemently put in Madame w.a.n.g, also smiling, "has often told me in private how nice your daughter Pao-ch'ai is; so this is no lie."

Pao-yu had tried to lead old lady Chia on, originally with the idea of inducing her to speak highly of Lin Tai-yu, but when unawares she began to eulogise Pao-ch'ai instead the result exceeded all his thoughts and went far beyond his expectations. Forthwith he cast a glance at Pao-chai, and gave her a smile, but Pao-chai at once twisted her head round and went and chatted with Hsi Jen. But of a sudden, some one came to ask them to go and have their meal. Dowager lady Chia rose to her feet, and enjoined Pao-yu to be careful of himself. She then gave a few directions to the waiting-maids, and resting her weight on lady Feng's arm, and pressing Mrs. Hsueh to go out first, she, and all with her, left the apartment in a body. But still she kept on inquiring whether the soup was ready or not. "If there's anything you might fancy to eat,"

she also said to Mrs. Hsueh and the others, "mind you, come and tell me, and I know how to coax that hussey Feng to get it for you as well as me."

"My venerable senior!" rejoined Mrs. Hsueh, "you do have the happy knack of putting her on her mettle; but though she has often got things ready for you, you've, after all, not eaten very much of them."

"Aunt," smiled lady Feng, "don't make such statements! If our worthy senior hasn't eaten me up it's purely and simply because she dislikes human flesh as being sour. Did she not look down upon it as sour, why, she would long ago have gobbled me up!"

This joke was scarcely ended, when it so tickled the fancy of old lady Chia and all the inmates that they broke out with one voice in a boisterous fit of laughter. Even Pao-yu, who was inside the room, could not keep quiet.

"Really," Hsi Jen laughed, "the mouth of our mistress Secunda is enough to terrify people to death!"

Pao-yu put out his arm and pulled Hsi Jen. "You've been standing for so long," he smiled, "that you must be feeling tired."

Saying this, he dragged her down and made her take a seat next to him.

"Here you've again forgotten!" laughingly exclaimed Hsi Jen. "Avail yourself now that Miss Pao-ch'ai is in the court to tell her to kindly bid their Ying Erh come and plait a few girdles with twisted cords."

"How lucky it is you've reminded me?" Pao-yu observed with a smile. And putting, while he spoke, his head out of the window: "Cousin Pao-ch'ai,"

he cried, "when you've had your repast, do tell Ying Erh to come over. I would like to ask her to plait a few girdles for me. Has she got the time to spare?"

Pao-ch'ai heard him speak; and turning round: "How about no time?" she answered. "I'll tell her by and bye to come; it will be all right."

Dowager lady Chia and the others, however, failed to catch distinctly the drift of their talk; and they halted and made inquiries of Pao-ch'ai what it was about. Pao-ch'ai gave them the necessary explanations.

"My dear child," remarked old lady Chia, "do let her come and twist a few girdles for your cousin! And should you be in need of any one for anything, I have over at my place a whole number of servant-girls doing nothing! Out of them, you are at liberty to send for any you like to wait on you!"

"We'll send her to plait them!" Mrs. Hsueh and Pao-ch'ai observed smilingly with one consent. "What can we want her for? she also daily idles her time way and is up to every mischief!"

But chatting the while, they were about to proceed on their way when they unexpectedly caught sight of Hsiang-yun, P'ing Erh, Hsiang Lin and other girls picking balsam flowers near the rocks; who, as soon as they saw the company approaching, advanced to welcome them.

Shortly, they all sallied out of the garden. Madame w.a.n.g was worrying lest dowager lady Chia's strength might be exhausted, and she did her utmost to induce her to enter the drawing room and sit down. Old lady Chia herself was feeling her legs quite tired out, so she at once nodded her head and expressed her a.s.sent. Madame w.a.n.g then directed a waiting-maid to hurriedly precede them, and get ready the seats. But as Mrs. Chao had, about this time, pleaded indisposition, there was only therefore Mrs. Chou, with the matrons and servant-girls at hand, so they had ample to do to raise the portieres, to put the back-cushions in their places, and to spread out the rugs.

Dowager lady Chia stepped into the room, leaning on lady Feng's arm. She and Mrs. Hsueh took their places, with due regard to the distinction between hostess and visitors; and Hsueh Pao-ch'ai and Shih Hsiang-yun seated themselves below. Madame w.a.n.g then came forward, and presented with her own hands tea to old lady Chia, while Li Kung-ts'ai handed a cup to Mrs. Hsueh.

"You'd better let those young sisters-in law do the honours,"

remonstrated old lady Chia, "and sit over there so that we may be able to have a chat."

Madame w.a.n.g at length sat on a small bench. "Let our worthy senior's viands," she cried, addressing herself to lady Feng, "be served here.

And let a few more things be brought!"

Lady Feng acquiesced without delay, and she told a servant to cross over to their old mistress' quarters and to bid the matrons, employed in that part of the household, promptly go out and summon the waiting-girls. The various waiting-maids arrived with all despatch. Madame w.a.n.g directed them to ask their young ladies round. But after a protracted absence on the errand, only two of the girls turned up: T'an Ch'un and Hsi Ch'un.

Ying Ch'un, was not, in her state of health, equal to the fatigue, or able to put anything in her mouth, and Lin Tai-yu, superfluous to add, could only safely partake of five out of ten meals, so no one thought anything of their non-appearance. Presently the eatables were brought, and the servants arranged them in their proper places on the table.