did actually make it a point to ask me to have some; but I had none; I
told him to keep them and send them to others, so confident am I that
with my mean lot and scanty blessings I little deserve to touch such
dainties."

As she spoke, a servant-girl poured her a cup of tea and brought it to
her. While she sipped it, she carried on a conversation on irrelevant
matters; which we need not notice, but turn our attention to Lin Tai-yue.

The instant she heard that Chia Cheng had sent for Pao-yue, and that he
had not come back during the whole day, she felt very distressed on his
account. After supper, the news of Pao-yue's return reached her, and she
keenly longed to see him and ask him what was up. Step by step she
trudged along, when espying Pao-ch'ai going into Pao-yue's garden, she
herself followed close in her track. But on their arrival at the Hsin
Fang bridge, she caught sight of the various kinds of water-fowl,
bathing together in the pond, and although unable to discriminate the
numerous species, her gaze became so transfixed by their respective
variegated and bright plumage and by their exceptional beauty, that she
halted. And it was after she had spent some considerable time in
admiring them that she repaired at last to the I Hung court. The gate
was already closed. Tai-yue, however, lost no time in knocking. But
Ch'ing Wen and Pi Hen had, who would have thought it, been having a
tiff, and were in a captious mood, so upon unawares seeing Pao-ch'ai
step on the scene, Ch'ing Wen at once visited her resentment upon
Pao-ch'ai. She was just standing in the court giving vent to her wrongs,
shouting: "You're always running over and seating yourself here, whether
you've got good reason for doing so or not; and there's no sleep for us
at the third watch, the middle of the night though it be," when, all of
a sudden, she heard some one else calling at the door. Ch'ing Wen was