mistress, and of your aunt exceed yours by a scented sceptre of jade.
Yours are the same as Miss Pao's. Miss Lin's are like those of Misses
Secunda, Tertia and Quarta, who received nothing beyond a fan and
several pearls and none of all the other things. As for our senior lady,
Mrs. Chia Chu, and lady Secunda, these two got each two rolls of gauze,
two rolls of silk, two scented bags, and two sticks of medicine."

After listening to her enumeration, "What's the reason of this?" he
smiled. "How is it that Miss Lin's are not the same as mine, but that
Miss Pao's instead are like my own? May not the message have been
wrongly delivered?"

"When they were brought out of the palace yesterday," Hsi Jen rejoined,
"they were already divided in respective shares, and slips were also
placed on them, so that how could any mistake have been made? Yours were
among those for our dowager lady's apartments. When I went and fetched
them, her venerable ladyship said that I should tell you to go there
to-morrow at the fifth watch to return thanks.

"Of course, it's my duty to go over," Pao-yue cried at these words, but
forthwith calling Tzu Chuean: "Take these to your Miss Lin," he told her,
"and say that I got them, yesterday, and that she is at liberty to keep
out of them any that take her fancy."

Tzu Chuean expressed her obedience and took the things away. After a
short time she returned. "Miss Lin says," she explained, "that she also
got some yesterday, and that you, Master Secundus, should keep yours."

Hearing this reply, Pao-yue quickly directed a servant to put them away.
But when he had washed his face and stepped out of doors, bent upon