with her back leaning against the railing; and, inviting goody Liu to also take a seat next to her, 'Is this garden nice or not?' she asked her.
Old goody Liu invoked Buddha several times. 'We country-people,' she rejoined, 'do invariably come, at the close of each year, into the city and buy pictures and stick them about. And frequently do we find ourselves in our leisure moments wondering how we too could manage to get into the pictures, and walk about the scenes they represent. I presumed that those pictures were purely and simply fictitious, for how could there be any such places in reality? But, contrary to my expectations, I found, as soon as I entered this garden to-day and had a look about it, that it was, after all, a hundred times better than these very pictures. But if only I could get some one to make me a sketch of this garden, to take home with me and let them see it, so that when we die we may have reaped some benefit!'
Upon catching the wish she expressed, dowager lady Chia pointed at Hsi Ch'un. 'Look at that young granddaughter of mine!' she smiled. 'She's got the knack of drawing. So what do you say to my asking her to- morrow to make a picture for you?'
This suggestion filled goody Liu with enthusiasm and speedily crossing over, she clasped Hsi Ch'un in her arms. 'My dear Miss!' she cried, 'so young in years, and yet so pretty, and so accomplished too! Mightn't you be a spirit come to life!'
After old lady Chia had had a little rest, she in person took goody Liu and showed her everything there was to be seen. First, they visited the Hsiao Hsiang lodge. The moment they stepped into the entrance, a narrow avenue, flanked on either side with kingfisher-like green bamboos, met their gaze. The earth below was turfed all over with moss. In the centre, extended a tortuous road, paved with pebbles. Goody Liu left dowager lady Chia and the party walk on the raised road, while she herself stepped on the earth. But Hu Po tugged at her. 'Come up, old dame, and walk here!' she exclaimed. 'Mind the fresh moss is slippery and you might fall.'
'I don't mind it!' answered goody Liu. 'We people are accustomed to walking (on such slippery things)! So, young ladies, please proceed. And do look after your embroidered shoes! Don't splash them with mud.'
But while bent upon talking with those who kept on the raised road, she unawares reached a spot, which was actually slippery, and with a sound of 'ku tang' she tumbled over.
The whole company clapped their hands and laughed boisterously.
'You young wenches,' shouted out dowager lady Chia, 'don't you yet raise her up, but stand by giggling?'
This reprimand was still being uttered when goody Liu had already crawled up. She too was highly amused. 'Just as my mouth was bragging,' she observed, 'I got a whack on the lips!'
'Have you perchance twisted your waist?' inquired old lady Chia. 'Tell the servant-girls to pat it for you!'
'What an idea!' retorted goody Liu, 'am I so delicate? What day ever goes by without my tumbling down a couple of times? And if I had to be patted every time wouldn't it be dreadful!'
Tzu Chuan had at an early period raised the speckled bamboo portiere. Dowager lady Chia and her companions entered and seated themselves. Lin Tai-yue with her own hands took a small tray and came to present a covered cup of tea to her grandmother.
'We won't have any tea!' Madame Wang interposed, 'so, miss, you needn't pour any.'
Lin Tai-yue, hearing this, bade a waiting-maid fetch the chair from under the window where she herself often sat, and moving it to the lower side, she pressed Madame Wang into it. But goody Liu caught sight of the pencils and inkslabs, lying on the table placed next to the window, and espied the bookcase piled up to the utmost with books. 'This must surely,' the old dame ejaculated, 'be some young gentleman's study!'
'This is the room of this granddaughter-in-law of mine,' dowager lady Chia explained, smilingly pointing to Tai-yue.
Goody Liu scrutinised Lin Tai-yue with intentness for a while. 'Is this anything like a young lady's private room?' she then observed with a smile. 'Why, in very deed, it's superior to any first class library!'
'How is it I don't see Pao-yue?' his grandmother Chia went on to inquire.
'He's in the boat, on the pond,' the waiting-maids, with one voice, returned for answer.
'Who also got the boats ready?' old lady Chia asked.
'The loft was open just now so they were taken out,' Li Wan said, 'and as I thought that you might, venerable senior, feel inclined to have a row, I got everything ready.'
After listening to this explanation, dowager lady Chia was about to pass some remark, but some one came and reported to her that Mrs. Hsueeh had arrived. No sooner had old lady Chia and the others sprung to their feet than they noticed that Mrs. Hsueeh had already made her appearance. While taking a seat: 'Your venerable ladyship,' she smiled, 'must be in capital spirits to-day to have come at this early hour!'
'It's only this very minute that I proposed that any one who came late, should be fined,' dowager lady Chia laughed, 'and, who'd have thought it, here you, Mrs. Hsueeh, arrive late!'
After they had indulged in good-humoured raillery for a time, old lady Chia's attention was attracted by the faded colour of the gauze on the windows, and she addressed herself to Madame Wang. 'This gauze,' she said, 'may have been nice enough when it was newly pasted, but after a time nothing remained of kingfisher green. In this court too there are no peach or apricot trees and these bamboos already are green in themselves, so were this shade of green gauze to be put up again, it would, instead of improving matters, not harmonise with the surroundings. I remember that we had at one time four or five kinds of coloured gauzes for sticking on windows, so give her some to-morrow to change that on there.'
'When I opened the store yesterday,' hastily put in Lady Feng, 'I noticed that there were still in those boxes, made of large planks, several rolls of 'cicada wing' gauze of silvery red colour. There were also several rolls with designs of twigs of flowers of every kind, several with 'the rolling clouds and bats' pattern, and several with figures representing hundreds of butterflies, interspersed among flowers. The colours of all these were fresh, and the gauze supple. But I failed to see anything of the kind you speak of. Were two rolls taken (from those I referred to), and a couple of bed-covers of embroidered gauze made out of them, they would, I fancy, be a pretty sight!'
'Pshaw!' laughed old lady Chia, 'every one says that there's nothing you haven't gone through and nothing you haven't seen, and don't you even know what this gauze is? Will you again brag by and bye, after this?'
Mrs. Hsueeh and all the others smiled. 'She may have gone through a good deal,' they remarked, 'but how can she ever presume to pit herself against an old lady like you? So why don't you, venerable senior, tell her what it is so that we too may be edified.'
Lady Feng too gave a smile. 'My dear ancestor,' she pleaded, 'do tell me what it is like.'
Dowager lady Chia thereupon proceeded to enlighten Mrs. Hsueeh and the whole company. 'That gauze is older in years than any one of you,' she said. 'It isn't therefore to be wondered, if you make a mistake and take it for 'cicada wing' gauze. But it really bears some resemblance to it; so much so, indeed, that any one, not knowing the difference, would imagine it to be the 'cicada wing' gauze. Its true name, however, is 'soft smoke' silk.'
'This is also a nice sounding name,' lady Feng agreed. 'But up to the age I've reached, I have never heard of any such designation, in spite of the many hundreds of specimens of gauzes and silks, I've seen.'
'How long can you have lived?' old lady Chia added smilingly, 'and how many kinds of things can you have met, that you indulge in this tall talk? Of this 'soft smoke' silk, there only exist four kinds of colours. The one is red- blue; the other is russet; the other pine-green; the other silvery-red; and it's because, when made into curtains or stuck on window-frames, it looks from far like smoke or mist, that it is called 'soft smoke' silk. The silvery-red is also called 'russet shadow' gauze. Among the gauzes used in the present day, in the palace above, there are none so supple and rich, light and closely-woven as this!'
'Not to speak of that girl Feng not having seen it,' Mrs. Hsueeh laughed, 'why, even I have never so much as heard anything of it.'
While the conversation proceeded in this strain, lady Feng soon directed a servant to fetch a roll. 'Now isn't this the kind!' dowager lady Chia exclaimed. 'At first, we simply had it stuck on the window frames, but we subsequently used it for covers and curtains, just for a trial, and really they were splendid! So you had better to- morrow try and find several rolls, and take some of the silvery-red one and have it fixed on the windows for her.'
While lady Feng promised to attend to her commission, the party scrutinised it, and unanimously extolled it with effusion. Old goody Liu too strained her eyes and examined it, and her lips incessantly muttered Buddha's name. 'We couldn't,' she ventured, 'afford to make clothes of such stuff, much though we may long to do so; and
