been set upon anything, but if you wanted it you could take it away at
once. I may have been fond of any eatable, but if I came to learn that
you too fancied it, I there and then put away what could be put away, in
a clean place, to wait, Miss, for your return. We had our meals at one
table; we slept in one and the same bed; whatever the servant-girls
could not remember, I reminded them of, for fear lest your temper, Miss,
should get ruffled. I flattered myself that cousins, who have grown up
together from their infancy, as you and I have, would have continued,
through intimacy or friendship, either would have done, in peace and
harmony until the end, so as to make it palpable that we are above the
rest. But, contrary to all my expectations, now that you, Miss, have
developed in body as well as in mind, you don't take the least heed of
me. You lay hold instead of some cousin Pao or cousin Feng or other from
here, there and everywhere and give them a place in your affections;
while on the contrary you disregard me for three days at a stretch and
decline to see anything of me for four! I have besides no brother or
sister of the same mother as myself. It's true there are a couple of
them, but these, are you not forsooth aware, are by another mother! You
and I are only children, so I ventured to hope that you would have
reciprocated my feelings. But, who'd have thought it, I've simply thrown
away this heart of mine, and here I am with plenty of woes to bear, but
with nowhere to go and utter them!"

While expressing these sentiments, tears, unexpectedly, trickled from
his eyes.

When Lin Tai-yue caught, with her ears, his protestations, and noticed
with her eyes his state of mind, she unconsciously experienced an inward
pang, and, much against her will, tears too besprinkled her cheeks; so,
drooping her head, she kept silent.