this on and go and pay my visit; and here I go and burn it, on the first day I wear it. Now isn't this enough to throw a damper over my good cheer?'
Ch'ing Wen lent an ear to their conversation for a long time, until unable to restrain herself, she twisted herself round. 'Bring it here,' she chimed in, 'and let me see it! You haven't been lucky in wearing this; but never mind!'
These words were still on Ch'ing Wen's lips, when the coat was handed to her. The lamp was likewise moved nearer to her. With minute care she surveyed it. 'This is made,' Ch'ing Wen observed, 'of gold thread, spun from peacock's feathers. So were we now to also take gold thread, twisted from the feathers of the peacock, and darn it closely, by imitating the woof, I think it will pass without detection.'
'The peacock-feather-thread is ready at hand,' She Yueeh remarked smilingly. 'But who's there, exclusive of you, able to join the threads?'
'I'll, needless to say, do my level best to the very cost of my life and finish,' Ch'ing Wen added.
'How ever could this do?' Pao-yue eagerly interposed. 'You're just slightly better, and how could you take up any needlework?'
'You needn't go on in this chicken-hearted way!' Ch'ing Wen cried. 'I know my own self well enough.'
With this reply, she sat up, and, putting her hair up, she threw something over her shoulders. Her head felt heavy; her body light. Before her eyes, confusedly flitted golden stirs. In real deed, she could not stand the strain. But when inclined to give up the work, she again dreaded that Pao-yue would be driven to despair. She therefore had perforce to make a supreme effort and, setting her teeth to, she bore the exertion. All the help she asked of She Yueeh was to lend her a hand in reeling the thread.
Ch'ing Wen first took hold of a thread, and put it side by side (with those in the pelisse) to compare the two together. 'This,' she remarked, 'isn't quite like them; but when it's patched up with it, it won't show very much.'
'It will do very well,' Pao-yue said. 'Could one also go and hunt up a Russian tailor?'
Ch'ing Wen commenced by unstitching the lining, and, inserting under it, a bamboo bow, of the size of the mouth of a tea cup, she bound it tight at the back. She then turned her mind to the four sides of the aperture, and these she loosened by scratching them with a golden knife. Making next two stitches across with her needle, she marked out the warp and woof; and, following the way the threads were joined, she first and foremost connected the foundation, and then keeping to the original lines, she went backwards and forwards mending the hole; passing her work, after every second stitch, under further review. But she did not ply her needle three to five times, before she lay herself down on her pillow, and indulged in a little rest.
Pao-yue was standing by her side. Now he inquired of her: 'Whether she would like a little hot water to drink.' Later on, he asked her to repose herself. Now he seized a grey-squirrel wrapper and threw it over her shoulders. Shortly after, he took a pillow and propped her up. (The way he fussed) so exasperated Ch'ing Wen that she begged and entreated him to leave off.
'My junior ancestor!' she exclaimed, 'do go to bed and sleep! If you sit up for the other half of the night, your eyes will to-morrow look as if they had been scooped out, and what good will possibly come out of that?'
Pao-yue realised her state of exasperation and felt compelled to come and lie down anyhow. But he could not again close his eyes.
In a little while, she heard the clock strike four, and just managing to finish she took a small tooth-brush, and rubbed up the pile.
'That will do!' She Yueeh put in. 'One couldn't detect it, unless one examined it carefully.'
Pao-yue asked with alacrity to be allowed to have a look at it. 'Really,' he smiled, 'it's quite the same thing.'
Ch'ing Wen coughed and coughed time after time, so it was only after extreme difficulty that she succeeded in completing what she had to patch. 'It's mended, it's true,' she remarked, 'but it does not, after all, look anything like it. Yet, I cannot stand the effort any more!'
As she shouted 'Ai-ya,' she lost control over herself, and dropped down upon the bed.
But, reader, if you choose to know anything more of her state, peruse the next chapter.
CHAPTER LIII.
In the Ning Kuo mansion sacrifices are offered to their ancestors on
the last night of the year.
In the Jung Kuo mansion, a banquet is given on the evening of the 15th
of the first moon.
But to resume our story. When Pao-yue saw that Ch'ing Wen had in her attempt to finish mending the peacock-down cloak exhausted her strength and fatigued herself, he hastily bade a young maid help him massage her; and setting to work they tapped her for a while, after which, they retired to rest. But not much time elapsed before broad daylight set in. He did not however go out of doors, but simply called out that they should go at once and ask the doctor round.
Presently, Dr. Wang arrived. After feeling her pulse, his suspicions were aroused. 'Yesterday,' he said, 'she was much better, so how is it that to-day she is instead weaker, and has fallen off so much? She must surely have had too much in the way of drinking or eating! Or she must have fatigued herself. A complaint arising from outside sources is, indeed, a light thing. But it's no small matter if one doesn't take proper care of one's self, as she has done after perspiring.'
As he passed these remarks, he walked out of the apartment, and, writing a prescription, he entered again.
When Pao-yue came to examine it, he perceived that he had eliminated the laxatives, and all the drugs, whose properties were to expel noxious influences, but added pachyma cocos, rhubarb, arolia edulis, and other such medicines, which could stimulate the system and strengthen her physique.
Pao-yue, on one hand, hastened to direct a servant to go and decoct them, and, on the other, he heaved a sigh. 'What's to be done?' he exclaimed. 'Should anything happen to her, it will all be through the evil consequences of my shortcomings!'
'Hai!' cried Ch'ing Wen, from where she was reclining on her pillow. 'Dear Mr. Secundus, go and mind your own business! Have I got such a dreadful disease?'
Pao-yue had no alternative but to get out of the way. But in the afternoon, he gave out that he was not feeling up to the mark, and hurried back to her side again.
The symptoms of Ch'ing Wen's illness were, it is true, grave; yet fortunately for her she had ever had to strain her physical strength, and not to tax the energies of her mind. Furthermore, she had always been frugal in her diet, so that she had never sustained any harm from under or over-eating. The custom in the Chia mansion was that as soon as any one, irrespective of masters or servants, contracted the slightest chill or cough, quiet and starving should invariably be the main things observed, the treatment by medicines occupying only a secondary place. Hence it was that when the other day she unawares felt unwell, she at once abstained from food during two or three days, while she carefully also nursed herself by taking proper medicines. And although she recently taxed her strength a little too much, she gradually succeeded, by attending with extra care to her health for another few days, in bringing about her complete recovery.
Of late, his female cousins, who lived in the garden, had been having their meals in their rooms, so with the extreme convenience of having a fire to prepare drinks and eatables, Pao-yue himself was able, needless for us to go into details, to ask for soups and order broths for (Ch'ing Wen), with which to recoup her health.
Hsi Jen returned soon after she had followed the funeral of her mother. She Yueeh then minutely told Hsi Jen all about Chui Erh's affair, about Ch'ing Wen having sent her off, and about Pao-yue having been already informed of the fact, and so forth, yet to all this Hsi Jen made no further comment than: 'what a very hasty disposition (that girl Ch'ing Wen has!).'
But consequent upon Li Wan being likewise laid up with a cold, she got through the inclemency of the weather; Madame Hsing suffering so much from sore eyes that Ying Ch'un and Chou-yen had to go morning and evening and wait on her, while she used such medicines as she had; Li Wan's brother, having also taken her sister-
