with you as to whether we might not hire a substitute." The
teacher expressed surprise and asked her why. "When our daughters
are taken into the palace," answered the mother, "they are dead
to us until they are twenty-five, when they are allowed to return
home. If they are incompetent or dull they are often severely
punished. They may contract disease and die, and their death is
not even announced to us; while if they prove themselves
efficient and win the approval of the authorities they are
retained in the palace and we may never see them or hear from
them again."

At first the teacher was inclined to favour the hiring of a
substitute, but on further consideration concluded that it would
be contrary to the law, and advised that the girl be allowed to
go. The mother, however, was so anxious to prevent her being
chosen that she sent her with uncombed hair, soiled clothes and a
dirty face, that she might appear as unattractive as possible.

The prospects for a concubine are even less promising than for a
serving maid, as when she once enters the palace she has little
if any hope of ever leaving it. She is neither mistress nor
servant, wife nor slave, she is but one of a hundred buds in a
garden of roses which have little if any prospect of ever
blooming or being plucked for the court bouquet. When, therefore,
the gates of the Forbidden City close behind the young girls who
are taken in as concubines of an emperor they shut out an
attractive, busy, beautiful world, filled with men and women,
boys and girls, homes and children, green fields and rich
harvests, and confine them within the narrow limits of one square
mile of brick-paved earth, surrounded by a wall twenty-five feet