silk-merchants of great cities heard of it, and they sent messengers to
Tchi, asking her that she should weave for them and teach them her
secret. Then she wove for them, as they desired, in return for the
silver cubes which they brought her; but when they prayed her to teach
them, she laughed and said, "Assuredly I could never teach you, for no
one among you has fingers like mine." And indeed no man could discern
her fingers when she wove, any more than he might behold the wings of a
bee vibrating in swift flight.

* * * * *

The seasons passed, and Tong never knew want, so well did his beautiful
wife fulfil her promise,--"_I will provide_"; and the cubes of bright
silver brought by the silk-merchants were piled up higher and higher in
the great carven chest which Tchi had bought for the storage of the
household goods.

One morning, at last, when Tong, having finished his repast, was about
to depart to the fields, Tchi unexpectedly bade him remain; and opening
the great chest, she took out of it and gave him a document written in
the official characters called _li-shu_. And Tong, looking at it, cried
out and leaped in his joy, for it was the certificate of his
manumission. Tchi had secretly purchased her husband's freedom with the
price of her wondrous silks!

"Thou shalt labor no more for any master," she said, "but for thine own
sake only. And I have also bought this dwelling, with all which is
therein, and the tea-fields to the south, and the mulberry groves hard
by,--all of which are thine."