As soon as Madame Wang heard this, she clasped her hands and uttered the
invocation, "O-mi-to-fu!" Unable to resist the impulse, she drew near
Hsi Jen. "My dear child," she added, "you have also luckily understood
the real state of things. What you told me is in perfect harmony with my
own views! Is it likely that I don't know how to look after a son? In
former days, when your elder master, Chu, was alive, how did I succeed
in keeping him in order? And can it be that I don't, after all, now
understand how to manage a son? But there's a why and a wherefore in it.
The thought is ever present in my mind now, that I'm already a woman
past fifty, that of my children there only remains this single one, that
he too is developing a delicate physique, and that, what's more, our
dear senior prizes him as much as she would a jewel, that were he kept
under strict control, and anything perchance to happen to him, she
might, an old lady as she is, sustain some harm from resentment, and
that as the high as well as the low will then have no peace or quiet,
won't things get in a bad way? So I feel prompted to spoil him by
over-indulgence. Time and again I reason with him. Sometimes, I talk to
him; sometimes, I advise him; sometimes, I cry with him. But though, for
the time being, he's all right, he doesn't, later on, worry his mind in
any way about what I say, until he positively gets into some other mess,
when he settles down again. But should any harm befall him, through
these floggings, upon whom will I depend by and bye?"

As she spoke, she could not help melting into tears.

At the sight of Madame Wang in this disconsolate mood, Hsi Jen herself
unconsciously grew wounded at heart, and as she wept along with her,
"Mr. Secundus," she ventured, "is your ladyship's own child, so how
could you not love him? Even we, who are mere servants, think it a piece