for the regard with which P'ing Erh has dealt with you and me? Better for us to show ourselves sensible of her kindness and by and bye pack the girl off, and finish.'
'Your suggestion is all very good,' Ch'ing Wen demurred, 'but how could I suppress this resentment?'
'What's there to feel resentment about?' Pao-yue asked. 'Just you take good care of yourself; it's the best thing you can do.'
Ch'ing Wen then took her medicine. When evening came, she had another couple of doses. But though in the course of the night, she broke out into a slight perspiration, she did not see any change for the better in her state. Still she felt feverish, her head sore, her nose stopped, her voice hoarse. The next day, Dr. Wang came again to examine her pulse and see how she was getting on. Besides other things, he increased the proportions of certain medicines in the decoction and reduced others; but in spite of her fever having been somewhat brought down, her head continued to ache as much as ever.
'Go and fetch the snuff,' Pao-yue said to She Yueeh, 'and give it to her to sniff. She'll feel more at ease after she has had several strong sneezes.'
She Yueeh went, in fact, and brought a flat crystal bottle, inlaid with a couple of golden stars, and handed it to Pao-yue.
Pao-yue speedily raised the cover of the bottle. Inside it, he discovered, represented on western enamel, a fair-haired young girl, in a state of nature, on whose two sides figured wings of flesh. This bottle contained some really first-rate foreign snuff.
Ch'ing Wen's attention was fixedly concentrated on the representation.
'Sniff a little!' Pao-yue urged. 'If the smell evaporates, it won't be worth anything.'
Ch'ing Wen, at his advice, promptly dug out a little with her nail, and applied it to her nose. But with no effect. So digging out again a good quantity of it, she pressed it into her nostrils. Then suddenly she experienced a sensation in her nose as if some pungent matter had penetrated into the very duct leading into the head, and she sneezed five or six consecutive times, until tears rolled down from her eyes and mucus trickled from her nostrils.
Ch'ing Wen hastily put the bottle away. 'It's dreadfully pungent!' she laughed. 'Bring me some paper, quick!'
A servant-girl at once handed her a pile of fine paper.
Ch'ing Wen extracted sheet after sheet, and blew her nose.
'Well,' said Pao-yue smiling, 'how are you feeling now?'
'I'm really considerably relieved.' Ch'ing Wen rejoined laughing. 'The only thing is that my temples still hurt me.'
'Were you to treat yourself exclusively with western medicines, I'm sure you'd get all right,' Pao-yue added smilingly. Saying this, 'Go,' he accordingly desired She Yueeh, 'to our lady Secunda, and ask her for some. Tell her that I spoke to you about them. My cousin over there often uses some western plaster, which she applies to her temples when she's got a headache. It's called 'I-fo-na.' So try and get some of it!'
She Yueeh expressed her readiness. After a protracted absence, she, in very deed, came back with a small bit of the medicine; and going quickly for a piece of red silk cutting, she got the scissors and slit two round slips off as big as the tip of a finger. After which, she took the medicine, and softening it by the fire, she spread it on them with a hairpin.
Ch'ing Wen herself laid hold of a looking-glass with a handle and stuck the bits on both her temples.
'While you were lying sick,' She Yueeh laughed, 'you looked like a mangy-headed devil! But with this stuff on now you present a fine sight! As for our lady Secunda she has been so much in the habit of sticking these things about her that they don't very much show off with her!'
This joke over, 'Our lady Secunda said,' she resumed, addressing herself to Pao-yue, ''that to-morrow is your maternal uncle's birthday, and that our mistress, your mother, asked her to tell you to go over. That whatever clothes you will put on to-morrow should be got ready to-night, so as to avoid any trouble in the morning.''
'Anything that comes first to hand,' Pao-yue observed, 'will do well enough! There's no getting, the whole year round, at the end of all the fuss of birthdays!'
Speaking the while, he rose to his feet and left the room with the idea of repairing to Hsi Ch'un's quarters to have a look at the painting. As soon as he got outside the door of the court-yard, he unexpectedly spied Pao-ch'in's young maid, Hsiao Lo by name, crossing over from the opposite direction. Pao-yue, with rapid step, strode up to her, and inquired of her whither she was going.
'Our two young ladies,' Hsiao Lo answered with a smile, 'are in Miss Lin's rooms; so I'm also now on my way thither.'
Catching this answer, Pao-yue wheeled round and came at once with her to the Hsiao Hsiang Lodge. Here not only did he find Pao-ch'ai and her cousin, but Hsing Chou-yen as well. The quartet was seated in a circle on the warming-frame; carrying on a friendly chat on everyday domestic matters; while Tzu Chuean was sitting in the winter apartment, working at some needlework by the side of the window.
The moment they caught a glimpse of him, their faces beamed with smiles. 'There comes some one else!' they cried. 'There's no room for you to sit!'
'What a fine picture of beautiful girls, in the winter chamber!' Pao-yue smiled. 'It's a pity I come a trifle too late! This room is, at all events, so much warmer than any other, that I won't feel cold if I plant myself on this chair.'
So saying, he made himself comfortable on a favourite chair of Tai-yue's over which was thrown a grey squirrel cover. But noticing in the winter apartment a jadestone bowl, full of single narcissi, in clusters of three or five, Pao-yue began praising their beauty with all the language he could command. 'What lovely flowers!' he exclaimed. 'The warmer the room gets, the stronger is the fragrance emitted by these flowers! How is it I never saw them yesterday?'
'These are,' Tai-yue laughingly explained, 'from the two pots of narcissi, and two pots of allspice, sent to Miss Hsueeh Secunda by the wife of Lai Ta, the head butler in your household. Of these, she gave me a pot of narcissi; and to that girl Yuen, a pot of allspice. I didn't at first mean to keep them, but I was afraid of showing no consideration for her kind attention. But if you want them, I'll, in my turn, present them to you. Will you have them; eh?'
'I've got two pots of them in my rooms,' Pao-yue replied, 'but they're not up to these. How is it you're ready to let others have what cousin Ch'in has given you? This can on no account do!'
'With me here,' Tai-yue added, 'the medicine pot never leaves the fire, the whole day long. I'm only kept together by medicines. So how could I ever stand the smell of flowers bunging my nose? It makes me weaker than ever. Besides, if there's the least whiff of medicines in this room, it will, contrariwise, spoil the fragrance of these flowers. So isn't it better that you should have them carried away? These flowers will then breathe a purer atmosphere, and won't have any mixture of smells to annoy them.'
'I've also got now some one ill in my place,' Pao-yue retorted with a smile, 'and medicines are being decocted. How comes it you happen to know nothing about it?'
'This is strange!' Tai-yue laughed. 'I was really speaking quite thoughtlessly; for who ever knows what's going on in your apartments? But why do you, instead of getting here a little earlier to listen to old stories, come at this moment to bring trouble and vexation upon your own self?'
Pao-yue gave a laugh. 'Let's have a meeting to-morrow,' he proposed, 'for we've also got the themes. Let's sing the narcissus and allspice.'
'Never mind, drop that!' Tai-yue rejoined, upon hearing his proposal. 'I can't venture to write any more verses. Whenever I indite any, I'm mulcted. So I'd rather not be put to any great shame.'
While uttering these words she screened her face with both hands.
'What's the matter?' Pao-yue smiled. 'Why are you again making fun of me? I'm not afraid of any shame, but, lo, you screen your face.'
'The next time,' Pao-ch'ai felt impelled to interpose laughingly, 'I convene a meeting, we'll have four themes for odes and four for songs; and each one of us will have to write four odes and four roundelays. The theme of the first ode will treat of the plan of the great extreme; the rhyme fixed being 'hsien,' (first), and the metre consisting of five words in each line. We'll have to exhaust every one of the rhymes under 'hsien,' and mind, not a single one may be left out.'
'From what you say,' Pao-ch'in smilingly observed, 'it's evident that you're not in earnest, cousin, in setting
