"To speak the truth," rejoined Shih Hsiang-yuen, "you've put me to the
trouble of working, I don't know how many things for you. The reason why
I refuse on this occasion should be quite evident to you!"

"I can't nevertheless make it out!" answered Hsi Jen.

"I heard the other day," continued Shih Hsiang-yuen, a sardonic smile on
her lip, "that while the fan-case, I had worked, was being held and
compared with that of some one else, it too was slashed away in a fit of
high dudgeon. This reached my ears long ago, and do you still try to
dupe me by asking me again now to make something more for you? Have I
really become a slave to you people?

"As to what occurred the other day," hastily explained Pao-yue smiling,
"I positively had no idea that that thing was your handiwork."

"He never knew that you'd done it," Hsi Jen also laughed. "I deceived
him by telling him that there had been of late some capital hands at
needlework outside, who could execute any embroidery with surpassing
beauty, and that I had asked them to bring a fan-case so as to try them
and to see whether they could actually work well or not. He at once
believed what I said. But as he produced the case and gave it to this
one and that one to look at, he somehow or other, I don't know how,
managed again to put some one's back up, and she cut it into two. On his
return, however, he bade me hurry the men to make another; and when at
length I explained to him that it had been worked by you, he felt, I
can't tell you, what keen regret!"

"This is getting stranger and stranger!" said Shih Hsiang-yuen. "It
wasn't worth the while for Miss Lin to lose her temper about it. But as