bloom.
Send word to bees and butterflies that they need not give way to
fears!
This stanza came next from the pen of Hsueeh Pao-ch'in,
Far distant do the branches grow; but how beauteous the blossom
blooms!
The maidens try with profuse show to compete in their spring
head-dress.
No snow remains on the vacant pavilion and the tortuous rails.
Upon the running stream and desolate hills descend the russet clouds.
When cold prevails one can in a still dream follow the lass-blown
fife.
The wandering elf roweth in fragrant spring, the boat in the red
stream.
In a previous existence, it must sure have been of fairy form.
No doubt need 'gain arise as to its beauty differing from then.
The perusal over, they spent some time in heaping, smiling the while, eulogiums upon the compositions. And they pointed at the last stanza as the best of the lot; which made it evident to Pao-yue that Pao-ch'in, albeit the youngest in years, was, on the other hand, the quickest in wits.
Tai-yue and Hsiang-yuen then filled up a small cup with wine and simultaneously offered their congratulations to Pao-ch'in.
'Each of the three stanzas has its beauty,' Pao-ch'ai remarked, a smile playing round her lips. 'You two have daily made a fool of me, and are you now going to fool her also?'
'Have you got yours ready?' Li Wan went on to inquire of Pao-yue.
'I'd got them,' Pao-yue promptly answered, 'but the moment I read their three stanzas, I once more became so nervous that they quite slipped from my mind. But let me think again.'
Hsiang-yuen, at this reply, fetched a copper poker, and, while beating on the hand-stove, she laughingly said: 'I shall go on tattooing. Now mind if when the drumming ceases, you haven't accomplished your task, you'll have to bear another fine.'
'I've already got them!' Pao-yue rejoined, smilingly.
Tai-yue then picked up a pencil. 'Recite them,' she smiled, 'and I'll write them down.'
Hsiang-yuen beat one stroke (on the stove). 'The first tattoo is over,' she laughed.
'I'm ready,' Pao-yue smiled. 'Go on writing.'
At this, they heard him recite:
The wine bottle is not opened, the line is not put into shape.
Tai-yue noted it down, and shaking her head, 'They begin very smoothly,' she said, as she smiled.
'Be quick!' Hsiang-yuen again urged.
Pao-yue laughingly continued:
To fairyland I speed to seek for spring, and the twelfth moon to find.
Tai-yue and Hsiang-yuen both nodded. 'It's rather good,' they smiled.
Pao-yue resumed, saying:
I will not beg the high god for a bottle of the (healing) dew,
But pray Shuang O to give me some plum bloom beyond the rails.
Tai-yue jotted the lines down and wagged her head to and fro. 'They're ingenious, that's all,' she observed.
Hsiang-yuen gave another rap with her hand.
Pao-yue thereupon smilingly added:
I come into the world and, in the cold, I pick out some red snow.
I leave the dusty sphere and speed to pluck the fragrant purple
clouds.
I bring a jagged branch, but who in pity sings my shoulders thin?
On my clothes still sticketh the moss from yon Buddhistic court.
As soon as Tai-yue had done writing, Hsiang-yuen and the rest of the company began to discuss the merits of the verses; but they then saw several servant-maids rush in, shouting: 'Our venerable mistress has come.'
One and all hurried out with all despatch to meet her. 'How comes it that she is in such good cheer?' every one also laughed.
Speaking the while, they discerned, at a great distance, their grandmother Chia seated, enveloped in a capacious wrapper, and rolled up in a warm hood lined with squirrel fur, in a small bamboo sedan-chair with an open green silk glazed umbrella in her hand. Yuean Yang, Hu Po and some other girls, mustering in all five or six, held each an umbrella and pressed round the chair, as they advanced.
Li Wan and her companions went up to them with hasty step; but dowager lady Chia directed the servants to make them stop; explaining that it would be quite enough if they stood where they were.
On her approach, old lady Chia smiled. 'I've given,' she observed, 'your Madame Wang and that girl Feng the slip and come. What deep snow covers the ground! For me, I'm seated in this, so it doesn't matter; but you mustn't let those ladies trudge in the snow.'
The various followers rushed forward to take her wrapper and to support her, and as they did so, they expressed their acquiescence.
As soon as she got indoors old lady Chia was the first to exclaim with a beaming face: 'What beautiful plum blossom! You well know how to make merry; but I too won't let you off!'
But in the course of her remarks, Li Wan quickly gave orders to a domestic to fetch a large wolf skin rug, and to spread it in the centre, so dowager lady Chia made herself comfortable on it. 'Just go on as before with your romping and joking, drinking and eating,' she then laughed. 'As the days are so short, I did not venture to have a midday siesta. After therefore playing at dominoes for a time, I bethought myself of you people, and likewise came to join the fun.'
Li Wan soon also presented her a hand-stove, while T'an Ch'un brought an extra set of cups and chopsticks, and filling with her own hands, a cup with warm wine, she handed it to her grandmother Chia. Old lady Chia swallowed a sip. 'What's there in that dish?' she afterwards inquired.
The various inmates hurriedly carried it over to her, and explained that 'they were pickled quails.'
'These won't hurt me,' dowager lady Chia said, 'so cut off a piece of the leg and give it to me.'
'Yes!' promptly acquiesced Li Wan, and asking for water, she washed her hands, and then came in person to carve the quail.
'Sit down again,' dowager lady Chia said, pressing them, 'and go on with your chatting and laughing. Let me hear you, and feel happy. Just you also seat yourself,' continuing, she remarked to Li Wan, 'and behave as if I were not here. If you do so, well and good. Otherwise, I shall take myself off at once.'
But it was only when they heard how persistent she was in her solicitations that they all resumed the seats, which accorded with their age, with the exception of Li Wan, who moved to the furthest side.
'What were you playing at?' old lady Chia thereupon asked.
'We were writing verses,' answered the whole party.
'Wouldn't it be well for those who are up to poetry,' dowager lady Chia suggested; 'to devise a few puns for lanterns so that the whole lot of us should be able to have some fun in the first moon?'
With one voice, they expressed their approval. But after they had jested for a little time; 'It's damp in here;' old lady Chia said, 'so don't you sit long, for mind you might be catching cold. Where it's nice and warm is in your cousin Quarta's over there, so let's all go and see how she is getting on with her painting, and whether it will be ready or not by the end of the year.'
'How could it be completed by the close of the year?' they smiled. 'She could only, we fancy, get it ready by the dragon boat festival next year.'
'This is dreadful!' old lady Chia exclaimed. 'Why, she has really wasted more labour on it than would have been actually required to lay out this garden!'
With these words still on her lips, she ensconced herself again in the bamboo sedan, and closed in or
