ONE day in the spring Pao-yü, went over to the bamboo hermitage to inquire after Tai-yü's health, but Tai-yü was just having her midday nap. Loath to disturb her, he went out instead to the waiting maid Tzu Chuan, who was sitting in the open pleasure veranda in front of the house doing some needlework.

"How is your little mistress? Is her cough better?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you, it is a bit better."

"A-mi-to-fo! It's a relief to hear that."

"Since when do you invoke Buddha? That is something new to me!"

"Ah, well, in distress one clings to the doctor."

He remarked that she was wearing only a thin black silk skirt and a dark green satin vest over it.

"Do you not find that attire too light for this between-seasons weather?" he asked, stroking her with his hand. "You will catch cold sitting here exposed to a draft."

"Don't do that!" she said, angrily recoiling. "Now, understand once for all: when we talk together there must be no more of this fondling. You are not a little boy any longer. What will people think if they see you? They will pass remarks about your behavior behind your back and lose respect for you. Our young lady has strictly forbidden us to go on with any fondling.

Do you not notice how reserved she is with you herself?"

And getting up, she gathered her needlework together and went into the house. He looked after her as utterly dumfounded as if a pail of cold water had been thrown over him. Then he crept off and sat down on a piece of rock on the way, overwhelmed by a thousand sorrowful thoughts. So great was his despondency that his eyes filled with tears. He had been sitting there lost in thought for the time that it would take to eat a moderate meal when the waiting maid Snowgoose came by. As she saw him sitting there so forlorn on the rock under the peach tree, with his face propped on his hand, staring absently into space, she stood and looked at him and said with a smile:

"What are you doing here, all alone and forlorn? Is it not too cold for you, sitting on that stone?"

"What is it? What do you want with me?" he asked, starting up in alarm. "You're a girl too, aren't you, so you also have no doubt been forbidden to have anything to do with me. What would people say if they saw us together? Away with you at once!"

Snowgoose turned away perplexed and went into the house. The young lady must have been reprimanding him again, she said to herself.

"Here is the ginseng which Madame Cheng sends the young lady," she said to Tzu Chuan.

"The young lady is still asleep? Who, then, has just been upsetting the little master so much that he's sitting outside there now, crying his eyes out?"

"Where is he sitting?"

"On a stone under the peach tree behind the honeysuckle arbor."

Tzu Chuan promptly laid aside her needlework and hurried out. She could scarcely keep from laughing out loud when she saw the poor boy sitting on his rock.

"My word, you have chosen a nice cool spot to sit down and rest in ! Let us hope you don't catch cold from it! How on earth could you be so touchy over the two well-meant words I said to you just now?"

"I touchy? I am nothing of the kind! You were quite right. But I was only saying to myself, the others may come to think as you do, until in the end no one will be left to speak to me any more; and that thought naturally was painful to me," he replied with a sorrowful smile.

She sat down close beside him.

"Why do you come up so near me since you bolted off just now when I came too near you?"

he asked.

"Ah, do drop that and let us forget it! What I wanted to ask you was this: Sometime recently you began talking to my little mistress about swallows' nests, and you were interrupted just as you had begun by the secondary wife Chao's coming in. I would very much like to know what more you wanted to say about the swallows' nests."

"Oh, nothing much. I had told my grandmother that your little mistress required some swallows' nests every day as medicine; for Pao-ch'ai is also only a guest here and cannot keep on providing her with a sufficient amount. As far as I know, Grandmother conveyed my wish to Hsi-feng. That is what I was going to say to your little mistress the other day when I was interrupted."

"So she owes it to your kind intervention that she now receives an ounce of swallows' nests every day from the kitchen? She could not make out. why the old Tai tai had suddenly become so attentive to her."

"Well, if she's good and eats her portion every day, let us hope that in two or three years she will be quite healthy," said Pao-yü,.

"But the question is: Will she have enough money to continue the cure when she goes home next year?" remarked Tzu Chuan.

"Home? Whom are you talking about?" he asked in alarm.

"Miss Tai-yü, of course; for she is going back to h?r own town of Suchow next year."

"Oh, come! You are talking nonsense. Her parents are both dead and that is just why we have taken her in here. What would she do in Suchow?"

"Oh, don't imagine that there are no other distinguished houses besides your Chia clan!"

retorted Tzu Chuan cheekily. "Certainly the old Tai tai did take in the orphan at the time in order to give her a substitute for her parental home. But now the young lady is grown up and marriageable. Therefore it is only proper that she should go back to her own family. Her parents are dead, but she has got other relatives. Even if they are poor, they are nevertheless

members of a highly respectable clan in which the fragrance of a noble culture has been passed down for generations, and these people would expose themselves to mockery and contempt if they allowed their own relative to continue to eat at a strange table. In short, next spring or at the latest next autumn Miss Tai-yü will leave this house. And if they do not send

her away from here of their own accord, well, then the Ling family will come and take her away. One evening recently the young lady gave me instructions to ask back from you all the little gifts and souvenirs which she has given to you in the course of the years. And she will likewise send back to you one of these days all the gifts and souvenirs which she has

received from you."

Pao-yü, felt as if a thunderbolt had struck him right on the top of his head. He was unable to utter a word. Tzu Chuan was just about to continue when Brigh'L C!oud came along. She was looking for him.

"I had a message to give him from my young lady. He does not seem to have quite grasped it yet. Take him away!" declared Tzu Chuan curtly, and left the two alone.

Ch'ing Wen perceived with amazement the distraught, absentminded expression of Pao-yü,'s face, the flush on his cheeks, the drops of sweat on his forehead. She took him by the hand and led him back to the Begonia Courtyard.

"What has happened?" asked She Yüe, horrified.

"He's got a feverish cold. Apparently he was hot and got into a cold draft," said Ch'ing Wen with a shrug.

If only it were merely that! But the pupils of his eyes were so strangely fixed, saliva dropped from the corners of his mouth, he seemed completely in a daze, and allowed everything to be done to him let himself be put to bed, then propped up with pillows and given tea, all without showing any movement of his own will. His waiting maids were utterly dumfounded by the

alteration in his whole being, and in their perplexity they called Mother Li, his old nurse, to his bedside.

'Mother Li observed him attentively, addressed various questions to him without receiving any answer, felt his pulse, and dug her sharp fingernails deeply into his lips and other parts of his body. But though she pressed so hard that the marks of her nails were deeply impr nted on his skin, he seemed to feel nothing and remained absolutely listless. Then she raised a loud lament, rocked her head to and fro like one possessed, beat wildly with her fists on the bed and the pillows, and cursed herself for having nursed him in vain in his infancy and devoted her life to him to no purpose. She Yüe, who thought the world of old Li and her opinions,

became infected by her outbreak of despair and joined in her lament. At this point Ch'ing Wen at last spoke up and confessed that Pao-yü,'s condition had nothing to do with catching cold, but that he must have been driven distracted by something which Tzu Chuan had done to him just now in the Bamboo Hermitage.

On hearing this, She Yüe dashed off at once to the Bamboo Hermitage to take Tzu Chuan to task. She found her giving Tai-yü some medicine. Without salutation or ceremony she flew at Tzu Chuan, crying: "What

have you just been saying to our little master? Go over and look at him and see for yourself what you have done ! See how you can answer for yourself to the old Tai tai!"

With these words she threw herself into the nearest armchair. Tai-yü was taken aback by her unmannerly, excited behavior, in such strong contrast to her normally precise and polite ways.

"What has happened?" she asked, full of misgiving.

"Ask that of your Tzu Chuan!" replied She Yüe, weeping. "I don't know what she has been saying to our poor little master. At any rate he's completely distracted. He can neither speak nor see, and his whole body feels cold. Mother Li has just been prodding him in vain with her fingernails, but he felt nothing; his body seems to have gone dead. Mother Li has given him

up already; she's sitting over there lamenting his end."

When Tai-yü heard this, her agitation was such that she vomited the medicine she had just taken and shook so badly with coughing that it seemed as if her lungs would burst and her entrails come apart. Her face became a deep crimson, her eyes, suddenly bloodshot, protruded from their sockets, she sat there bent over, and her breathing wus so weak thai she could not even raise her head. With horror Tzu Chuan perieived the consequences of her thoughtless behavior.

"What did I say, anyway?" she whimpered. "I only said a few words to him in joke, and he took them seriously."

She tried to attend to her mistress and began to clap her back, but Tai-yü pushed her away angrily.

"Stop thumping me! Instead, get me a rope with which to hang myself!" she gasped laboriously.

"Surely you should know him by now, and understand that in his simplicity he takes everything said in joke for the truth!" said She Yüe reproachfully.

"If your words were not meant seriously, go and clear up the misunderstanding; perhaps that will bring him back to his senses," Tai-yü ordered her maid.

Tzu Chuan set out obediently for the Begonia Courtyard together with She Yüe. Pao-yü,'s mother a: d grandmother had meantime arrived there.

"What did you say to him, you wretched bitch?" the Ancestress burst out angrily as Tzu Chuan appeared.

Tzu Chuan was just about to stammer some words of self-defense when Pao-yü, perceived her and instantly awoke from his state of trance. A deep sigh and a mournful "Ah!" burst from his lips. Then he broke into sobs. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"Beg his pardon!" urged the Ancestress. She thought that Tzu Chuan had offended Pao-yü, in some way, but to everyone's surprise Pao-yü, took Tzu Chuan affectionately by the hand and drew her closer to him.

"Do not say any more about going away," he whispered, "but if it must be, let me go with you!"

His words were incomprehensible to the others. They pressed Tzu Chuan to speak up, and then they learned at last how Tzu Chuan had put Pao-yü, to the test for fun and driven him completely demented by her talk of bidding farewell and returning to Suchow, which of course she did not mean seriously at all.

"So that is all it was? I was wondering what on earth could have happened," said the Ancestress, melting into tears of relief. "You are such a clever, sensible girl normally, and you must know that he is a simpleton! How on earth could you make game of him so irresponsibly?" she said reproachfully to Tzu Chuan.

At this moment a servant announced: "Mrs. Ling Chih Hsiao is outside and would like to know how the little brother is."

The mention of the name caused a violent change in Pao-yü,.

"How frightful!" he cried. "There, her relatives have come already to take her away! But you must not let them! Away with them! Away \vith them!" he cried in a frenzy of excitement.

Pretending to comply with his wish, the Ancestress gave orders that the wife of the majordomo Ling should be sent away again.

"Do not be uneasy! The Lings whom you mean are all dead. Your cousin has not got any relatives left who could take, her away," she said in an effort to pacify him.

,"Yes, but who then are these other Lings? I do not want anyone of the name of Ling to come near me except my cousin!" he cried, still trembling with fear.

"You shall have your way. No other Lings will come near you!" said the Ancestress, and she gave instructions that the family of the majordomo Ling were not to enter the Park of Delightful Vision in future and were never to be mentioned in Pao-yü,'s presence. No one dared to laugh at this strange instruction.

Pao-yü,'s glance chanced to fall on the European mechanical ship of gilded tin which was hanging on the wall.

"Look, there's her ship! It's coming to fetch her!" he shouted in a new access of feverish hallucination, pointing with his finger at the ship on the wall.

At a sign from the nurse She Yüe hurriedly removed the toy from the wall in order to withdraw it from his sight, but he stretched out his hand, made She Yüe give it to him, and hid it under the bedclothes.

"Now she can't sail away!" he said contentedly, at the same time

holding Tzu Chuan convulsively fast as if he would never allow her to leave his side again. At this point Doctor Wang was announced.

Doctor Wang felt Pao-yü,'s pulse, and then, while Tzu Chuan listened conscience-striken, with bent head, treated the company to a long and learned professional diagnosis concerning furring of the tongue, and constipation, and deficiency of the flow of blood to the brain owing

to mental excitement, with their accumulated result of mental derangement.

"Enough of that learned stuff!" interrupted the Ancestress impatiently. "We others are lay folk and cannot follow your theories. What we want to know above all is this: Is his condition serious?"

The doctor reassured her and with a courteous smile promised speedy recovery.

"Good ! Then go and write your prescription in the next apartment. If it is successful you may be assured of an extra fee, and I shall see that my grandson presents it to you personally with a kowtow of thanks. But if it is unsuccessful, woe betide you! I will send out my people to pull

down the whole school of medicine where you studied!" threatened the Ancestress laughing.

At the mention of an extra fee the doctor was overjoyed, and made many deep and ceremonious bows and murmurs of pu chan, "too great an honor," even continuing his pu charts long after the Ancestress had come out with her frightful threat a circumstance which naturally evoked hearty laughter among all present.

The medicine prescribed by Doctor Wang effected a real improvement, and the Ancestress, reassured to some degree, was able to leave the sickroom with her ladies. As Pao-yü, did not permit the waiting maid Tzu Chuan to leave his side, Ho Po was allotted to Tai-yü in her stead for the time being.

And so it happened that that night the three waiting maids, She Yüe, Ch'ing Wen, and Tzu Chuan, watched by Pao-yü,'s bedside as well as the nurse Li and several elderly serving women. He slept, but at times raved wildly in his dreams and cries such as "Has she gone already?" or "There are her people coming to fetch her away!" betrayed the fact that even in

his sleep he was still with Tai-yü. Several times during the night the Ancestress asked for reports from the sickroom, and when she heard of his delirious dreams, she ordered that the patient should be given the best cinnamon pills and wonder-working powders in the domestic medicine closet efficacious remedies which had power to drive away evil spirits and purify the choked-up doors of the body and make them free so that good spirits could find entry.

The next day Pao-yü, felt distinctly better and was back in his right senses once more, but because of his fear that Tzu Chuan might leave him,

it pleased him to go on playing the invalid a while longer. Of course he could not continue indefinitely deceiving those around him by these artful pretenses, and when Little Cloud came to visit him one day and in her merry way mimicked his condition during those critical days by means of all sorts of grimaces and tomfoolery, he forgot his pretense of suffering so far as to sit up in bed and laugh heartily. He had not thought that his recent condition had been so funny, he said. That made the household feel fully assured that he must really be well again.

"Why did you put me into such a state of fright recently?" he asked .Tzu Chuan one day when they were alone.

"Why, I only did it for fun. How on earth could you have taken it seriously?"

"All the same, what you said did not sound so very unlikely."

"You can be easy in your mind. Not one of Miss Ling's closer relatives is still alive, and all the distant relatives live far away from Suchow, scattered through the various provinces. And even if someone should turn up one day to fetch away my little mistress, it is quite certain that

the old Tai tai would not let her go !"

"And even if the old Tai tai should be willing to let her go, I would definitely not allow it!" he added passionately.

"Come now! Who knows if you will still think the same way in two or three years? For you are now grown up, and already engaged."

"Engaged? I didn't know that!"

"Oh, it's said that the old Ancestress intends Miss Precious Harp for you. For what other reason would she make such a favorite of the young lady?"

"Ha! Ha! So I am still taken for a fool? Yet it seems to me that I am not quite such a fool as you are. I happen to know that Cousin Precious Harp has already been engaged for a long while past to young Mei, son of Mei, the member of the Han Lin Academy. So you can't fool me this time ! Do you not know of the solemn vow that I have made to your little mistress? No!

No! I am lucky enough to have just recovered from my last fright, and already you want to start trying to hoax me again? I only wish that I could tear the heart out of my breast here and now and show it to you and to your mistress in order to convince you both how sincerely I mean it. Then I would die happy. And when I am dead may I be burned to ashes and go up in

smoke, and may the wind carry me in all directions. That is what I would wish!" He had said all this with rising excitement; he was gnashing his teeth; his eyes were full of tears.

"Don't get so excited! I only wanted to put you to the test a bit, I was worried about my little mistress. True, I have not always belonged to her since I left home, but she has always been so good to me. That is

why I am so very fond of her, and I dread the thought of being parted from her," said Tzu Chuan, holding his mouth shut with one hand and wiping the tears from her eyes with the other.

"You silly little thing! You're grieving without reason," he said, now in his turn laughing, trying to calm her. "Let me confide one thing to you: in life and in death, we three shall stay together!"

Tzu Chuan remained thoughtfully silent. A serving woman appeared to announce that Chia

Huan and nephew Chia Lan were outside and would like to inquire about the health of the little master.

"Oh, let them not trouble about me; I want to go to sleep now. Send them away again!"

muttered Pao-yü,. "You would do better to send me away. It is time I was looking after my little mistress again," interjected Tzu Chuan.

"You are right, i was thinking of that myself last evening, for I am now quite well. Go then!"

Tzu Chuan immediately set about packing her bedclothes and other things.

"You have got three hand mirrors," he remarked. "Would you leave me that one there as a souvenir? I will always place it beside my pillow when I go to bed and take it with me when I go out."

Tzu Chuan did as he wished; then she took leave of him and of all the other inmates of the Begonia Courtyard, and returned to the Bamboo Hermitage.

All the time that she knew Pao-yü, to be ill in bed, Tai-yü had suffered with him, and during Tzu Chuan's absence she had shed many a secret tear. Now, when she saw Tzu Chuan coming back to her and heard her report of Pao-yü,'s recovery, she herself suddenly felt a great deal better and more cheerful.

"He means it really seriously," said Tzu Chuan with a smile to her mistress as they went to bed that night. "That sudden bad turn he took was solely due to my having let drop a few words about our going away and bidding farewell."

Tai-yü pretended not to have heard her remark. After a fairly lengthy pause Tzu Chuan continued, as if talking to herself: "Why get restless and want to change when one is so safe and well looked after here? The chief thing is that you two have known and understood each other from childhood. Everything else will come right in time."

"Will you not go to sleep at last? Are you so little tired from the last few days that you must go nibbling idly at ants' eggs?" asked Tai-yü, interrupting her soliloquy: But Tzu Chuan refused to be rebuffed and continued: "Oh, it's not just idle chatter; what I want to say to you comes

straight from my heart. Believe me, I have felt for you all these years, in your loneliness and desolation. How I wish that the main affair of your life would happen very soon, while the old Tai tai is still alive! As long as the old Tai tai is in command you have nothing to fear, but once

she is dead, who knows? These aristocratic young people simply are as they are: today they look to the east, tomorrow to the west; they like best to do with not less than 'three chief rooms and five side-chambers.' Today they bring home a wife beautiful as a heavenly fairy;

after three or five nights they are tired of her, and begin looking out for another, and then they either hate the first wife or else banish the thought of her into the farthest corner of their minds. When this happens it is a good thing for a young wife to have the backing of an

influential crowd of relations. Therefore I think that it would be a good thing for you if your main affair was settled while the old Tai tai is still in authority here. You are clever, you will understand what I mean when I advise you to make up your mind now and keep to your decision, bearing in mind the proverb:

Ten thousand gold batzes Are more easily won Than a single heart."

"You seem to have gone out of your mind," said Tai-yü, cutting short her flow of talk. "How on earth can a person change so suddenly, all in a few days? You have become quite intolerable. But just you wait! I will ask the old Tai tai tomorrow to take you away from here."

"Why? I only meant well by you. I merely want you to look out for yourself while there is yet

time. Surely there's no harm in that?" said Tzu Chuan, in laughing self-defense, and soon after fell asleep.

But Tai-yü remained awake for a long time. In her heart she felt quite differently from what the brusque tone she had just put on would lead one to believe. She was profoundly moved by the sensible words of her good waiting maid and she had to agree with her in her heart. She lay awake the whole night, tossing and turning fretfully and weeping silently into the pillow;

only as dawn was breaking did she get a little sleep.

She got up next morning so exhausted and underslept that she found it an effort to wash herself, and rinse out her mouth, and eat her swallows' nest cream. That day Aunt Hsueh was celebrating her birthday. Tai-yü went over to offer her congratulations and at the same time took her a piece of her own needlework; then she came straight back to her Bamboo Hermitage. She was quite unable to attend the usual banquet and theatrical performance.

Pao-yü, was also absent from among the birthday guests. At the festive banquet for the male guests, whicli lasted more than three or four days, nephew Hsueh Kuo did the honors in place of the absent Hsueh Pan.

For a long time past Aunt Hsueh had had an eye on Chou-yen, Princess Shieh's poor niece.

True, the young girl was penniless, one of those who "have only a thorn for a hair-clasp," as the saying goes. On the other hand, she was graceful of form, and quiet and pleasing in her ways, in fact, she had the making of an ideal wife. Actually, Aunt Hsueh had been thinking of her for her son Hsueh Pan, but then she said to herself that the young girl was really too good

for that scoundrel and wastrel and would only suffer misery if married to him; so she changed her plans and decided to win Chou-yen for her nice young nephew Hsueh Kuo instead.

She first informed Hsi-feng of her plan, and Hsi-feng in her turn confided the matter to the Ancestress. The Ancestress gave her willing consent and evinced eagerness herself to play the part of the sponsor and go-between who brings the mountains togethf"-. She sent forthwith ;or Princess Shieh and asked her consent to the project. The Princess said to herself

that a union of her poor niece with the rich family of Hsueh Kuo could not be other than advantageous, and as the suitor, moreover, was a good-looking, well-behaved young man, she consented without any lengthy deliberation. The Ancestress now sent for Aunt Hsueh to be the third party at the marriage conference. For the sake of good form, quite a lengthy

discussion of pros and cons now developed between Princess Shieh and Aunt Hsueh, with apparent resistance and rejection, and raising of this doubt and that objection until, thanks to the energetic persuasion of the Ancestress, agreement was eventually reached. The parents of the bride were now informed and called upon to appear. Sometime previously they had

taken refuge in the Yungkuo palace, owing to their poverty. Could they have wished for anything better than this advantageous union with the well-to-do family of Hsueh? They were only too willing to give their consent.

The Ancestress was very pleased with her achievement.

"There's another business happily concluded! All my life I have enjoyed carrying through negotiations of this kind, and now what about my marriage broker's commission?" she said jokingly to Aunt Hsueh.

"Naturally, the commission has been well earned. I trust that ten thousand silver pieces will suffice," said Aunt Hsueh, taking up the jest. "But how would it be if the old Tai tai, having negotiated the marriage, would also do us the honor of giving the wedding feast?"

"No, thank you; I should prefer not to," replied the Ancestress, laughing. "Let other hands and feet than mine stir themselves this time!" Thereupon she sent for Princess Chen and instructed her to make all the necessary preparations for a worthy wedding feast, neither too economical nor too luxurious, and to render her a conscientious and detailed account of all

the outlay.

During her sojourn in the Yungkuo palace Chou-yen had attached herself most of all to Pao-ch'ai and had found in her a friend as sympathetic as a sister. True, she lived with her cousin Ying Ch'un but the latter bothered just as little about her poor relation as did her stepmother, Princess Shieh. She was made to feel quite clearly that she was poor and did not belong to the respected mandarin class as the other young girls in the Park of Delightful Vision did, and she was poorly equipped and often was without even the most necessary things. She lacked the courage to beg from her cousin or from her proud aunt, Princess Shieh, and at such times of need it was always Pao-ch'ai to whom she turned in her embarrassment and who helped her out secretly with this or that.

One day Pao-ch'ai met Chou-yen by chance in the park. They were both going in the same direction to visit Tai-yü. Coming to a narrow pathway, Pao-ch'ai lei the other step in front, and so she noticed what very thin clothing she wore.

"Why do you not dress more warmly in this cold early spring weather?" she asked her.

Chou-yen bent her head, embarrassed, and did not answer.

"Your pocket money has run short again, I suppose?" she asked, smiling. "Yes, I know, Cousin Hsi-feng has taken to pinching and reckoning of late."

Chou-yen nodded eager agreement.

"I have to give half of my meager two taels a month to my parents at Aunt Shieh's wish. Then there are the little gifts which I have to give, to serving women and waiting maids to induce them to condescend to serve me at all and not overlook me completely. So what is .there left with which to buy things?" she complained. "Of course my pocket money always runs out

right at the beginning of the month. And the fact is that I have taken all my warm lined clothing secretly to a pawnshop and pawned it."

"So I thought. Well, I shall have a talk with Mother. And meantime, will you turn back and send me your pawn ticket as quickly as possible, and I will have it redeemed secretly, and you will have your warm things back by this evening. You could easily catch a bad cold by running about so lightly dressed. Where is your pawnshop, by the way?"

"It is on the main road west of the Drum Tower, and is called the Hall of Enduring Weil-Being,

or something of the kind."

"Oh, indeed? Then the money will at least remain, in the family. The employees in the pawnshop will think that if their employers do not come to them in person, at least they honor them with their clothes."

Chou-yen flushed, with embarrassment. So she had gone to a pawnshop which was run by the Hsueh family, of all people !

When Pao-ch'ai reached the Bamboo Hermitage she found her mother Aunt Hsueh together

with Tai-yü.

"How marvellous are the ways of destiny! Aunt Hsueh has just told me of the engagement of her nephew to Chou-yen. Who would have thought it would all happen so quickly?" said Tai-yü to Pao-ch'ai.

"Yes, my child, if the old man in the