the bride in Marysville, purchasing her (I suppose) of her parents after
the Chinese custom. I obeyed the summons; obtained for him the necessary
license, and then at the Mission House awaited the coming of the bride.
That which at length arrived resembled more a moving package of rich
and brilliant dry-goods of Chinese manufacture than a bright and
blushing bride. Something could be seen of the shoes she wore, and when
at length, in the course of the service, I somewhat firmly insisted on a
joining of hands a hand was made to appear, but there was no bridal
kiss, nor any sight or semblance of a face beneath the quadrupled or
quintupled veils. However, the marriage was effected in a Christian way,
and the next morning there came to me an invitation to call upon the
bride. I found her to be the most beautiful Chinese girl I had ever
seen, with manners all the more pleasing because so very shy. Her
husband had prepared quarters for her which, as compared with the
average Chinese home, were almost palatial, and everything seemed to
promise a future peaceful and joyous.

After a few months the mother-in-law made her daughter a visit as she
passed through Sacramento on her way back to her native land. What
passed between mother and daughter we do not know, but a few days after
her departure, Fong Bow returning to his home was shocked to find his
little wife suspended by the neck in an attempt at suicide. He rescued
her, and when she was restored asked for the reason. She acknowledged
that she had a good home and a kind and generous husband, but there was
no shrine in the house, no ancestral tablet, no Joss, and she was
convinced that some great evil must be impending from spirits thus
neglected and provoked. She preferred to sacrifice her present comfort
rather than incur the woes approaching,--all the more dreadful in her
apprehension because utterly unknown. Whereupon Fong Bow told her that
while he himself could not worship such things, and knew that an idol