a frame like hers resist the brunt of such a squall." Unable therefore
to restrain himself, he vehemently shouted: "Leave off writing! See,
it's pouring; you're wet through!"

The girl caught these words, and was frightened out of her wits. Raising
her head, she at once descried some one or other standing beyond the
flowers and calling out to her: "Leave off writing. It's pouring!" But
as Pao-yue was, firstly, of handsome appearance, and as secondly the
luxuriant abundance of flowers and foliage screened with their boughs,
thick-laden with leaves, the upper and lower part of his person, just
leaving half of his countenance exposed to view, the maiden simply
jumped at the conclusion that he must be a servant girl, and never for a
moment dreamt that it might be Pao-yue. "Many thanks, sister, for
recalling me to my senses," she consequently smiled. "Yet is there
forsooth anything outside there to protect you from the rain?"

This single remark proved sufficient to recall Pao-yue to himself. With
an exclamation of "Ai-yah," he at length became conscious that his whole
body was cold as ice. Then drooping his head, he realised that his own
person too was drenched. "This will never do," he cried, and with one
breath he had to run back into the I Hung court. His mind, however,
continued much exercised about the girl as she had nothing to shelter
her from the rain.

As the next day was the dragon-boat festival, Wen Kuan and the other
singing girls, twelve in all, were given a holiday, so they came into
the garden and amused themselves by roaming everywhere and anywhere. As
luck would have it, the two girls Pao-Kuan, who filled the _role_
of young men and Yue Kuan, who represented young women, were in the I
Hung court enjoying themselves with Hsi Jen, when rain set in and they