yourself."

But she sneered at him:

"You have been listening to the flower words of old Wise-Wand. Better
in a few days! She would have to be ill first!"

"What do you mean?"

Since the servant was no longer there, she told him in a low voice
what she had seen and heard. Ho Chang's anger was such that his sight
was troubled. She begged him to calm himself.

"Enough! Enough!" he thundered. "This worthless daughter fouls the
very air upon our threshold. We must kill them both in the night, so
that none may know."

The woman's face became as the earth.

"We have already reached a ripe age, and this is the only flesh and
bone we have. If you kill her, what will be left to us? As for
Ya-nei, he is of a good family, he is intelligent, and well-built. Our
stations are identical and our houses equal. His only fault is that he
did not make a proposal, but rather forced everything in secret.
Yet so the matter is. Would it not be better to send him back with
a letter to Wu, requiring gifts of betrothal? We would lose all by
making a scandal."

Ho Chang's rage was already half spent, and he now let himself be
persuaded by degrees. He went out and asked the boatmen where they