form a party. Then having a couple of flowered rugs spread under the olea trees on the hills, she bade the matrons on duty, the waiting-maids and other servants to likewise make themselves comfortable and to eat and drink at their pleasure until they were wanted, when they could come and answer the calls.
Hsiang-yuen next fetched the themes for the verses and pinned them with a needle on the wall. 'They're full of originality,' one and all exclaimed after perusal, 'we fear we couldn't write anything on them.'
Hsiang-yuen then went onto explain to them the reasons that had prompted her not to determine upon any particular rhymes.
'Yes, quite right!' put in Pao-yue. 'I myself don't fancy hard and fast rhymes!'
But Lin Tai-yue, being unable to stand much wine and to take any crabs, told, on her own account, a servant to fetch an embroidered cushion; and, seating herself in such a way as to lean against the railing, she took up a fishing-rod and began to fish. Pao-ch'ai played for a time with a twig of olea she held in her hand, then resting on the window-sill, she plucked the petals, and threw them into the water, attracting the fish, which went by, to rise to the surface and nibble at them. Hsiang-yuen, after a few moments of abstraction, urged Hsi Jen and the other girls to help themselves to anything they wanted, and beckoned to the servants, seated at the foot of the hill, to eat to their heart's content. Tan Ch'un, in company with Li Wan and Hsi Ch'un, stood meanwhile under the shade of the weeping willows, and looked at the widgeons and egrets. Ying Ch'un, on the other hand, was all alone under the shade of some trees, threading double jasmine flowers, with a needle specially adapted for the purpose. Pao-yue too watched Tai-yue fishing for a while. At one time he leant next to Pao-ch'ai and cracked a few jokes with her. And at another, he drank, when he noticed Hsi Jen feasting on crabs with her companions, a few mouthfuls of wine to keep her company. At this, Hsi Jen cleaned the meat out of a shell, and gave it to him to eat.
Tai-yue then put down the fishing-rod, and, approaching the seats, she laid hold of a small black tankard, ornamented with silver plum flowers, and selected a tiny cup, made of transparent stone, red like a begonia, and in the shape of a banana leaf. A servant-girl observed her movements, and, concluding that she felt inclined to have a drink, she drew near with hurried step to pour some wine for her.
'You girls had better go on eating,' Tai-yue remonstrated, 'and let me help myself; there'll be some fun in it then!'
So speaking, she filled for herself a cup half full; but discovering that it was yellow wine, 'I've eaten only a little bit of crab,' she said, 'and yet I feel my mouth slightly sore; so what would do for me now is a mouthful of very hot distilled spirit.'
Pao-yue hastened to take up her remark. 'There's some distilled spirit,' he chimed in. 'Take some of that wine,' he there and then shouted out to a servant, 'scented with acacia flowers, and warm a tankard of it.'
When however it was brought Tai-yue simply took a sip and put it down again.
Pao-ch'ai too then came forward, and picked up a double cup; but, after drinking a mouthful of it, she lay it aside, and, moistening her pen, she walked up to the wall, and marked off the first theme: 'longing for chrysanthemums,' below which she appended a character 'Heng.'
'My dear cousin,' promptly remarked Pao-yue. 'I've already got four lines of the second theme so let me write on it!'
'I managed, after ever so much difficulty, to put a stanza together,' Pao-ch'ai smiled, 'and are you now in such a hurry to deprive me of it?'
Without so much as a word, Tai-yue took a pen and put a distinctive sign opposite the eighth, consisting of: 'ask the chrysanthemums;' and, singling out, in quick succession, the eleventh: 'dream of chrysanthemums,' as well, she too affixed for herself the word 'Hsiao' below. But Pao-yue likewise got a pen, and marked his choice, the twelfth on the list: 'seek for chrysanthemums,' by the side of which he wrote the character 'Chiang.'
T'an Ch'un thereupon rose to her feet. 'If there's no one to write on 'Pinning the chrysanthemums'' she observed, while scrutinising the themes, 'do let me have it! It has just been ruled,' she continued, pointing at Pao- yue with a significant smile, 'that it is on no account permissible to introduce any expressions, bearing reference to the inner chambers, so you'd better be on your guard!'
But as she spoke, she perceived Hsiang-yuen come forward, and jointly mark the fourth and fifth, that is: 'facing the chrysanthemums,' and 'putting chrysanthemums in vases,' to which she, like the others, appended a word, Hsiang.'
'You too should get a style or other!' T'an Ch'un suggested.
'In our home,' smiled Hsiang-yuen, 'there exist, it is true, at present several halls and structures, but as I don't live in either, there'll be no fun in it were I to borrow the name of any one of them!'
'Our venerable senior just said,' Pao-ch'ai observed laughingly, 'that there was also in your home a water- pavilion called 'leaning on russet clouds hall,' and is it likely that it wasn't yours? But albeit it doesn't exist now-a- days, you were anyhow its mistress of old.'
'She's right!' one and all exclaimed.
Pao-yue therefore allowed Hsiang-yuen no time to make a move, but forthwith rubbed off the character 'Hsiang,' for her and substituted that of 'Hsia' (russet).
A short time only elapsed before the compositions on the twelve themes had all been completed. After they had each copied out their respective verses, they handed them to Ying Ch'un, who took a separate sheet of snow- white fancy paper, and transcribed them together, affixing distinctly under each stanza the style of the composer. Li Wan and her assistants then began to read, starting from the first on the list, the verses which follow:
'Longing for chrysanthemums,' by the 'Princess of Heng Wu.'
With anguish sore I face the western breeze, and wrapt in grief, I
pine for you!
What time the smart weed russet turns, and the reeds white, my heart
is rent in two.
When in autumn the hedges thin, and gardens waste, all trace of you is
gone.
When the moon waxeth cold, and the dew pure, my dreams then know
something of you.
With constant yearnings my heart follows you as far as wild geese
homeward fly.
Lonesome I sit and lend an ear, till a late hour to the sound of the
block!
For you, ye yellow flowers, I've grown haggard and worn, but who doth
pity me,
And breathe one word of cheer that in the ninth moon I will soon meet
you again?
'Search for chrysanthemums,' by the 'Gentleman of I Hung:'
When I have naught to do, I'll seize the first fine day to try and
stroll about.
Neither wine-cups nor cups of medicine will then deter me from my
wish.
Who plants the flowers in all those spots, facing the dew and under
the moon's rays?
Outside the rails they grow and by the hedge; but in autumn where do
they go?
With sandals waxed I come from distant shores; my feelings all
exuberant;
But as on this cold day I can't exhaust my song, my spirits get
depressed.
The yellow flowers, if they but knew how comfort to a poet to afford,
Would not let me this early morn trudge out in vain with my cash-laden
staff.
'Planting chrysanthemums,' by the Gentleman of 'I Hung:'
When autumn breaks, I take my hoe, and moving them myself out of the
park,
