Pao-yue fell into a despondent mood and gave way to conjectures.

"Judging," he reflected, "from this behaviour of hers, it would seem as
if it could not be for what transpired yesterday. Yesterday too I came
back late in the evening, and, what's more, I didn't see her, so that
there was no occasion on which I could have given her offence."

As he indulged in these reflections, he involuntarily followed in her
footsteps to try and catch her up, when he descried Pao-ch'ai and
T'an-ch'un on the opposite side watching the frolics of the storks.

As soon as they saw Tai-yue approach, the trio stood together and started
a friendly chat. But noticing Pao-yue also come up, T'an Ch'un smiled.
"Brother Pao," she said, "are you all right. It's just three days that I
haven't seen anything of you?"

"Are you sister quite well?" Pao-yue rejoined, a smile on his lips. "The
other day, I asked news of you of our senior sister-in-law."

"Brother Pao," T'an Ch'un remarked, "come over here; I want to tell you
something."

The moment Pao-yue heard this, he quickly went with her. Distancing
Pao-ch'ai and Tai-yue, the two of them came under a pomegranate tree.
"Has father sent for you these last few days?" T'an Ch'un then asked.

"He hasn't," Pao-yue answered laughingly by way of reply.

"Yesterday," proceeded T'an Ch'un, "I heard vaguely something or other