"what a trouble you've been put to! But you speak decently, and unlike
the others who keep on buzz-buzz-buzz, like mosquitoes! You're not
aware, sister-in-law, that I actually dread uttering a word to any of
the girls outside the few servant-girls and matrons in my own immediate
service; for they invariably spin out, what could be condensed in a
single phrase, into a long interminable yarn, and they munch and chew
their words; and sticking to a peculiar drawl, they groan and moan; so
much so, that they exasperate me till I fly into a regular rage. Yet how
are they to know that our P'ing Erh too was once like them. But when I
asked her: 'must you forsooth imitate the humming of a mosquito, in
order to be accounted a handsome girl?' and spoke to her, on several
occasions, she at length improved considerably."

"What a good thing it would be," laughed Li Kung-ts'ai, "if they could
all be as smart as you are."

"This girl is first-rate!" rejoined lady Feng, "she just now delivered
two messages. They didn't, I admit, amount to much, yet to listen to
her, she spoke to the point."

"To-morrow," she continued, addressing herself to Hsiao Hung smilingly,
"come and wait on me, and I'll acknowledge you as my daughter; and the
moment you come under my control, you'll readily improve."

At this news, Hsiao Hung spurted out laughing aloud.

"What are you laughing for?" Lady Feng inquired. "You must say to
yourself that I am young in years and that how much older can I be than
yourself to become your mother; but are you under the influence of a
spring dream? Go and ask all those people older than yourself. They