laughed. 'Old goody Liu,' he said with eagerness, 'is a person well up in years, and she may at the moment have remembered wrong; it's very likely she did. But recount to me what you saw.'
'The door of that temple,' Pei Ming explained, 'really faces south, and is all in a tumble-down condition. I searched and searched till I was driven to utter despair. As soon, however, as I caught sight of it, 'that's right,' I shouted, and promptly walked in. But I at once discovered a clay figure, which gave me such a fearful start, that I scampered out again; for it looked as much alive as if it were a real living being.'
Pao-yue smiled full of joy. 'It can metamorphose itself into a human being,' he observed, 'so, of course, it has more or less a life-like appearance.'
'Was it ever a girl?' Pei Ming rejoined clapping his hands. 'Why it was, in fact, no more than a green-faced and red-haired god of plagues.'
Pao-yue, at this answer, spat at him contemptuously. 'You are, in very truth, a useless fool!' he cried. 'Haven't you even enough gumption for such a trifling job as this?'
'What book, I wonder, have you again been reading, master?' Pei Ming continued. 'Or you may, perhaps, have heard some one prattle a lot of trash and believed it as true! You send me on this sort of wild goose chase and make me go and knock my head about, and how can you ever say that I'm good for nothing?'
Pao-yue did not fail to notice that he was in a state of exasperation so he lost no time in trying to calm him. 'Don't be impatient!' he urged. 'You can go again some other day, when you've got nothing to attend to, and institute further inquiries! If it turns out that she has hood-winked us, why, there will, naturally, be no such thing. But if, verily, there is, won't you also lay up for yourself a store of good deeds? I shall feel it my duty to reward you in a most handsome manner.'
As he spoke, he espied a servant-lad, on service at the second gate, approach and report to him: 'The young ladies in our venerable ladyship's apartments are standing at the threshold of the second gate and looking out for you, Mr. Secundus.'
But as, reader, you are not aware what they were on the look-out to tell him, the subsequent chapter will explain it for you.
CHAPTER XL.
The venerable lady Shih attends a second banquet in the garden of
Broad Vista.
Chin Yuean-yang three times promulgates, by means of dominoes, the
order to quote passages from old writers.
As soon as Pao-yue, we will now explain, heard what the lad told him, he rushed with eagerness inside. When he came to look about him, he discovered Hu Po standing in front of the screen. 'Be quick and go,' she urged. 'They're waiting to speak to you.'
Pao-yue wended his way into the drawing rooms. Here he found dowager lady Chia, consulting with Madame Wang and the whole body of young ladies, about the return feast to be given to Shih Hsiang-yuen.
'I've got a plan to suggest,' he consequently interposed. 'As there are to be no outside guests, the eatables too should not be limited to any kind or number. A few of such dishes, as have ever been to the liking of any of us, should be fixed upon and prepared for the occasion. Neither should any banquet be spread, but a high teapoy can be placed in front of each, with one or two things to suit our particular tastes. Besides, a painted box with partitions and a decanter. Won't this be an original way?'
'Capital!' shouted old lady Chia. 'Go and tell the people in the cook house,' she forthwith ordered a servant, 'to get ready to-morrow such dishes as we relish, and to put them in as many boxes as there will be people, and bring them over. We can have breakfast too in the garden.'
But while they were deliberating, the time came to light the lamps. Nothing of any note transpired the whole night. The next day, they got up at early dawn. The weather, fortunately, was beautifully clear. Li Wan turned out of bed at daybreak. She was engaged in watching the old matrons and servant-girls sweeping the fallen leaves, rubbing the tables and chairs, and preparing the tea and wine vessels, when she perceived Feng Erh usher in old goody Liu and Pan Erh. 'You're very busy, our senior lady!' they said.
'I told you that you wouldn't manage to start yesterday,' Li Wan smiled, 'but you were in a hurry to get away.'
'Your worthy old lady,' goody Liu replied laughingly, 'wouldn't let me go. She wanted me to enjoy myself too for a day before I went.'
Feng Erh then produced several large and small keys. 'Our mistress Lien says,' she remarked, 'that she fears that the high teapoys which are out are not enough, and she thinks it would be as well to open the loft and take out those that are put away and use them for a day. Our lady should really have come and seen to it in person, but as she has something to tell Madame Wang, she begs your ladyship to open the place, and get a few servants to bring them out.'
Li Wan there and then told Su Yuen to take the keys. She also bade a matron go out and call a few servant- boys from those on duty at the second gate. When they came, Li Wan remained in the lower story of the Ta Kuan loft, and looking up, she ordered the servants to go and open the Cho Chin hall and to bring the teapoys one by one. The young servant-lads, matrons and servant-maids then set to work, in a body, and carried down over twenty of them.
'Be careful with them,' shouted Li Wan. 'Don't be bustling about just as if you were being pursued by ghosts! Mind you don't break the tenons!' Turning her head round, 'old dame,' she observed, addressing herself smilingly to goody Liu, 'go upstairs too and have a look!'
Old goody Liu was longing to satisfy her curiosity, so at the bare mention of the permission, she uttered just one word ('come') and, dragging Pan Erh along, she trudged up the stairs. On her arrival inside, she espied, pile upon pile, a whole heap of screens, tables and chairs, painted lanterns of different sizes, and other similar articles. She could not, it is true, make out the use of the various things, but, at the sight of so many colours, of such finery and of the unusual beauty of each article, she muttered time after time the name of Buddha, and then forthwith wended her way downstairs. Subsequently (the servants) locked the doors and every one of them came down.
'I fancy,' cried Li Wan, 'that our dowager lady will feel disposed (to go on the water), so you'd better also get the poles, oars and awnings for the boats and keep them in readiness.'
The servants expressed their obedience. Once more they unlocked the doors, and carried down everything required. She then bade a lad notify the boatwomen go to the dock and punt out two boats. But while all this bustle was going on, they discovered that dowager lady Chia had already arrived at the head of a whole company of people. Li Wan promptly went up to greet them.
'Dear venerable senior,' she smiled, 'you must be in good spirits to have come in here! Imagining that you hadn't as yet combed your hair, I just plucked a few chrysanthemums, meaning to send them to you.'
While she spoke, Pi Yueeh at once presented to her a jadite tray, of the size of a lotus leaf, containing twigs cut from every species of chrysanthemum. Old lady Chia selected a cluster of deep red and pinned it in her hair about her temples. But turning round, she noticed old goody Liu. 'Come over here,' she vehemently cried with a smile; 'and put on a few flowers.'
Scarcely was this remark concluded, than lady Feng dragged goody Liu forward. 'Let me deck you up!' she laughed. With these words, she seized a whole plateful of flowers and stuck them three this way, four that way, all over her head. Old lady Chia, and the whole party were greatly amused; so much so, that they could not check themselves.
'I wonder,' shouted goody Liu smiling, 'what blessings I have brought upon my head that such honours are conferred upon it to-day!'
'Don't you yet pull them away,' they all laughed, 'and chuck them in her face! She has got you up in such a way as to make a regular old elf of you!'
'I'm an old hag, I admit,' goody Liu pursued with a laugh; 'but when I was young, I too was pretty and fond of flowers and powder! But the best thing I can do now is to keep to such fineries as befit my advanced age!'
While they bandied words, they reached the Hsin Fang pavilion. The waiting maids brought a large embroidered rug and spread it over the planks of the divan near the balustrade. On this rug dowager lady Chia sat,
