house. Our old house was not entirely new. When we bought the
place there was a very fine but old Chinese house, the palace of a
Duke, standing on the ground, and by some clever re-arrangement
and building on, it was transformed into a beautiful foreign style
house with all the fine hardwood carving of the old house worked
into it. By using the words "foreign style," it is meant that, in
so far as the Chinese house could be made to look like a foreign
house, without tearing it down entirely, it was changed, that is
the doors and windows, passageways, furnishings, etc., were
foreign, but the arrangement of the house itself and courtyard was
Chinese. This, like all Chinese houses in Peking, was built in a
very rambling fashion, and with the gardens, covered about ten
acres of ground. We had just finished furnishing it and moved in
only four days when we left for Paris; and it has always been a
great sorrow to my family that we should lose this magnificent
place, after having spent so much time and money in building and
beautifying it. However, this is only one of the many trials that
a high official in China is called upon to bear.

The houses in Peking are built in a very rambling fashion,
covering a large amount of ground, and our former house was no
exception to the rule. It had sixteen small houses. one story
high, containing about 175 rooms, arranged in quadrangles facing
the courtyard, which went to make up the whole; and so placed,
that without having to actually go out of doors, you could go from
one to the other by verandas built along the front and enclosed in
glass. My reader will wonder what possible use we could make of
all of these rooms; but what with our large family, numerous
secretaries, Chinese writers, messengers, servants, mafoos
(coachmen), and chair coolies, it was not a difficult task to use