as if they had apprehended abstraction. Both lowered their heads and
meditated on the subtle sense of the saying. But unconsciously a stream
of tears rolled down their cheeks. They could not, it is true, get a
glimpse of each other; yet as the one was in the Hsiao Hsiang lodge,
standing in the breeze, bedewed with tears, and the other in the I Hung
court, facing the moon and heaving deep sighs, was it not, in fact, a
case of two persons living in two distinct places, yet with feelings
emanating from one and the same heart?

Hsi Jen consequently tendered advice to Pao-yue. "You're a million times
to blame," she said, "it's you who are entirely at fault! For when some
time ago the pages in the establishment, wrangled with their sisters, or
when husband and wife fell out, and you came to hear anything about it,
you blew up the lads, and called them fools for not having the heart to
show some regard to girls; and now here you go and follow their lead.
But to-morrow is the fifth day of the moon, a great festival, and will
you two still continue like this, as if you were very enemies? If so,
our venerable mistress will be the more angry, and she certainly will be
driven sick! I advise you therefore to do what's right by suppressing
your spite and confessing your fault, so that we should all be on the
same terms as hitherto. You here will then be all right, and so will she
over there."

Pao-yue listened to what she had to say; but whether he fell in with her
views or not is not yet ascertained; yet if you, reader, choose to know,
we will explain in the next chapter.