FOR MONTHS PAST Hsi-feng HAD BEEN SUFFERING FROM AN OBSTINATE

female ailment which frequently confined her to her room and her sickbed. Without her constant supervision, discipline in the western palace had gradually become lax, and even in the Park of Delightful Vision irregularities had crept in, which were little in keeping with the

strict order which should rule in this carefully sheltered domain of virtuous young ladies of the house. Recently Yüan Yang, taking an evening walk through the park, had caught Greeting of Spring's chess maid on a secret rendezvous in the bushes with a young manservant, who had climbed in over the wall. It was an unheard-of happening, which would have meant a

terrible flogging for both parties if it had become known. True, Yüan Yang had very considerately kept silent about it, and of course the fellow had made off at once.

Nevertheless, the culprit was to be detected later.

Late oHe evening, just as Pao-yü, had gone to bed, the waiting maid Magpie, from the apartments of Aunt Chao, the secondary wife of Mr. Cheng, appeared in the Begonia Courtyard and, despite the late hour, asked to speak to Pao-yü,. Her mistress had just been discussing something in a whisper with his father, and she had caught Pao-yü,'s name, so she wanted to give him advance warning for a talk with his father tomorrow. That was the only

important thing she had to say. It was very little, to be sure, but it was enough to frighten Pao-yü, very considerably.

He said to himself that it did not bode any good when the secondary wife, who was so ill-disposed towards him, made him the subject of a secret conversation with his father. Chia Cheng had recently returned from the provinces and at the time was enjoying a holiday which the Imperial government had granted him. Up to the present he had been spending this

welcome leisure peacefully and meditatively at home, resting from the fatigue-of service.

Contrary to his usual habit, he had left Pao-yü, alone this tine and spared him the usual severe cross-examination about his studies and progress. Now Pao-yü, was afraid that the secondary wife Chao might have suggested that a new examination of his offspring's work was overdue. Perhaps the dreaded examination might take place the very next day. And he felt completely unprepared ! With one jump he leaped out of bed. dressed himself quickly, and took up the long-neglected classics. He was going to spend the whole night quickly preparing himself, in so far as he could, and brushing up his incomplete knowledge.

Of course the night's rest was also at an end for the waiting maids, who watched him poring over his books by the light of a candle and heard him groaning and moaning as he strenuously racked his brains.

"Such a beast ! To surprise us in the middle of the night with her false alarms! A few good pricks of a needle would be the right thing for herself and her old mistress!" grumbled Ch'ing Wen angrily. Meantime the waiting maid She Yüeh had poured out fresh tea and put a bowl of it in front of her worried master to refresh him. She was only lightly clothed in a short, thin petticoat.

"Will you not put on something warmer? The night is cool and you will catch cold," he said anxiously, looking up from his books.

"Oh, do not let us distract you from your work! You should only think of those now!" she warned him, smilingly pointing to his books.

At that moment two younger maids ran in frightened and shrieking. A man had got into the park over the wall, they reported breathlessly.

"It's terrible! Where has he run to? The park must be searched with lanterns for him!" they all said, chattering together excitedly. But the clever and compassionate Ch'ing Wen saw at once that here was a chance for her poor little master to escape the morning examination.

"This hard night work will not really help you very much," she whispered to Pao-yü,. "Pretend you have become ill through fright, and just stay in bed in the morning! Then you will get over the trouble."

Pao-yü, joyfully snatched at the suggestion, shut the detested books, arid lay down quietly to sleep. But first of all he gave instructions for all the women and the male porters of the gate watch to search every corner of the park with lanterns for the intruder. The search was without result. Presumably the young girls had imagined things in their sleep and allowed

themselves to be frightened by the wind rustling in the branches of the trees, the searchers said.

"Nonsense! The girls' report is probably quite correct; you have not searched well," Ch'ing Wen declared firmly to the servants of the gate watch. "The little master and we others have also heard the suspicious noise. Surely we cannot all have been deceived. The little master is

ill from excitement; he has a fever and is sweating all over his body. I'm going to his mother to fetch pills to get down the fever. Would it be necessary for me to do that if the story was as harmless as you allege?"

Whereupon the gate watchers, mystified, renewed their search. Meantime Ch'ing Wen hurried over to the Tai tai Cheng and saw to it that the news of the nocturnal incident and of Pao-yü,'sillness was spread

everywhere throughout the palace. The frightened Madame Cheng brought the matter before the old Tai tai the next morning. The old Tai tai was beside herself and strongly criticized the carelessness of the staff in the park. "The worst of it is that our own people cannot be trusted.

Perhaps they are hushing up the matter because the criminal is to be found in their own midst," she said.

While the older ladies present, Princess Shieh and Princess Chen, Madame Cheng, Hsi-feng, and the Widow Chu, maintained an embarrassed silence, Taste of Spring came forward and declared: "Since Cousin Hsi-feng has been ill and unable to attend to the park so much, the discipline among the servants has become more and more lax. Formerly the servants used to

sneak away from their duties only for an occasional hour, for a little game of cards in private,

three or four of them together. Recently the gambling has been going on quite openly and on a large scale, with a club committee and all the rest of it, and stakes of thirty to fifty thousand-piece strings of money. A short time ago there was actually a great fight."

"But that is an outrageous state of affairs! Why have you not reported it before?" asked the Ancestress indignantly.

"Mother always had so many other things to think about, and recently her health has been failing. I wanted to spare her annoyance; that is why I kept silent," said Taste of Spring.

"You take the matter far too lightly," said the Ancestress reproachfully. "If it stopped at a little game or a harmless dispute! But this gambling for money night after night leads in its turn to drinking and intemperance; wine and food are smuggled in by crooked means; then doors and gates are opened secretly; and the open doors and gates entice in thieves and

vagabonds; and it goes on. You must bear in mind that among such a numerous staff there are bound to be many bad elements, and these, when encouraged by opportunity, give free scope to their wicked instincts and infect the others. And to think that such things are going on in the immediate neighborhood of you virtuous, well-protected young girls ! The harm which

you yourselves could come to in such corrupt surroundings is inconceivable!"

Tn-4e of Spring returned silently to her place. But the energetic Hsi-feng forthwith summoned the four wives of the stewards who were directly responsible to her for the temale staff, and reprimanded them severely in the presence of the Ancestress. The Ancestress then sent them into the park to find out the culprits who had been participating in the secret gambling

and to bring them before her; and she offered a cash reward for each person informed upon and threatened punishment by flogging for any attempt at concealment.

The result of the investigation was that three chief gambling man-

ageresses, eight gambling submanageresses, and fwenty other participants were indicted and brought before the Ancestress. The Ancestress made them kneel down in the courtyard and subjected them to a thorough cross-examination. Dice, counters, and other gambling equipment were collected, stacked up in heaps, and burned. The gambling funds were confiscated and divided among the other servants. The threeprincipal culprits received forty strokes twice over and were dismissed from service. They were never to be allowed to enter the palace again. The other persons implicated received twenty stripes and were punished besides by deduction of three months' wages, and reduced to the lowest grade of service,

that of lavatory attendants. Among the three chief culprits was Greeting of Spring's nurse.

Pao-ch'ai and Black Ja'de and the other young girls appealed in vain for a pardon for the nurse, to save their cousin's face; but the Ancestress remained unrelenting and, despite their intercession, chased her granddaughter's nurse out of the house.

While the Ancestress, exhausted from the recent excitements, was taking her midday rest,

Princess Shieh set out on a tour of inspection of the park. She was just about to enter the park gate when the maid Numskull, chuckling gleefully to herself and swinging a green and red embroidered bag in her hand, ran into her path.

The little fifteen-year-old had been in the household only a short time and served the Ancestress doing rough work and running errands. The Ancestress had taken a fancy to the hefty, uncouth creature, with the broad face and the big strong feet, whose simplicity was a source of constant amusement; it was she who had given her the name of Numskull. She treated the young girl with special indulgence, and even allowed hef to play in the park now

and then in her spare time. It was on one of these frolics that she had just now picked up a brightly embroidered perfume bag, among some isolated rocks, off the roadway. The embroidery was not of the usual patterns taken from the world of flowers and birds, but showed on the front a couple in close embrace and on the back a series of written characters.

Our Numskull had no inkling of the vernal significance of the picture. She innocently thought that the two naked figures were either two demons fighting or a married couple brawling.

Beaming with joy, she was about to take her find to the Ancestress when she ran into Princess Shieh on the way.

"Oh, what beautiful thing has our Numskull picked up, that she's so pleased about? Let me have a look," asked the Princess.

"Yes, it's somethinj wonderfully beautiful! Here, look at it yourself, Tai tai!" replied Numskull,

as she held up the bag to the Princess. A hurried glance sufficed to make the Princess recoil in horror.

"Where did you pick it up?" she inquired excitedly.

"I found it between the rocks when I was catching grasshoppers."

"It is something very wicked. You really deserve a sound thrashing for having touched it; but because you are our Numskull and don't know what it is all about, you shall be forgiven this time. In any case, keep your mouth shut and do not speak to anyone about what you have found. Do you understand?"

Numskull turned pale with fright, quickly made a kowtow of apology, and slipped away feeling thoroughly perplexed. The Princess hid the bag in the pocket of her sleeve and, shaking her head, set off for the pavilion of her stepdaughter, Greeting of Spring.

"That is a nice turn your nurse has played you ! And to think that a big sensible girl like you could allow such a thing to happen and not open her mouth!" she said reproachfully to Greeting of Spring. "And that such a thing should happen to my daughter, of all people!"

Greeting of Spring sulkily bent her head for a moment and started lacing up her belt.

"I took her to task twice, but it was no use. What more could I do? After all, she as my nurse

has more right to give me a talking to than I have t? give her one," replied Ying Ch'un ill-humoredly. She could not get over the hard sentence which her nurse had received.

"Nonsense! You are her mistress, and it was not only your right but also your duty to keep an eye on her, if she was not behaving properly. And if she did not obey you, you should have informed me. And what do these goings-on lead to? This person has probably been hiring out

your jewelry and clothing to pay her gambling debts. But mind you: If you have been silly enough to grant her favors of this kind, you cannot count on any more pocket money from me.

So, just look out where you are to get money from for the coming Mid-Autumn Festival!"

When Greeting of Spring remained defiantly silent, the Princess continued, appealing to her sense of honor: "Your own mother, the concubine Chou, is such a splendid woman ! She is ten times better than the mother of your cousin T'an Ch'un the concubine Chao. You should make an effort to emulate your mother and also to be superior to your cousin. Unfortunately,

you are not yet half as good as she is. Well, it is all the same to me. I have neither sons nor daughters of my own, and therefore I am fortunately not in danger of being shamed by my children. But . . ."

She was interrupted in her talk by a waiting maid who announced that the old Tai tai had finished her midday rest, whereupon the Princess hurriedly cut short her visit and took her leave in order to go back and keep the Ancestress company again.

"What about that jewelry of yours which was lost the gold-braided phoenix clasp with the She Yüe insets?" asked the waiting maid Orange

as soon as the Princess had left. "When I discovered the loss I at once suspected that your nurse might have taken the precious article and pawned it to pay her gambling debts. You thought at the time that the chess maid had put it away, but when I asked her she said she had last put it in the jewel case on the bookshelf, to have it ready for you for the fifteenth of

the eighth month, the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. But it has disappeared from the case.

You ought to send for your nurse and ask her about it."

"Ah, what for!" replied Greeting of Spring indifferently. "Of course she has taken it. I myself gave her permission because she was in some difficulty at the time. I made her promise that she would return it soon and put it back in the box, but evidently she forgot all about it. Now

that she has so many other troubles, I don't want to worry her with this matter."

"She remembers it well enough; she's just counting on your good nature and on your forgetfulness. Should we not inform Madame Hsi-feng and demand back your property through her? Or, if you do not want to make a fuss about it, perhaps we could induce your nurse to give it back for a few strings of money. What do you think?"

"Let it be! Why all this fuss? I do not miss the piece at all."

"How can one go to such lengths of good nature? You simply invite people to cheat you when you behave like that!" said Orange; and she thought, as she shook her head, that her mistress well deserved the nickname of "Blockhead" which she bore. The best thing is for me to try to get justice for her, she thought to herself, turning to go out the door.

Meantime a daughter-in-law of the dismissed nurse had arrived outside. She was the wife of the servant Yu Kwei, and had come to put in a good word with Greeting of Spring for her mother-in-law. While she was outside she had happened to hear the discussion between Greeting of Spring and Orange regarding the lost piece of jewelry. When she heard Orange's decision to go to Madame Hsi-feng and report the matter, she felt impelled to intervene, and she walked in with a smile. First of all she turned to Orange and asked her to refrain from going to Madame Hsi-feng, and thus avoid a new scandal. Naturally, it was a matter of honor for her family to redeem and return promptly the young lady's jewelry which her mother-in-law had borrowed and pawned on account of a temporary monetary embarrassment. Then she

presented her further petition to Ying Ch'un asking her to take up the cause of her old nurse and intercede for her with the Ancestress.

"It's completely useless! My cousins and I have already begged in vain for mercy for her," Greeting of Spring informed her curtly.

"Surely, Sister-in-law, you are not making the return of the jewelry

dependent upon my young lady's interceding for your mother-in-law? One matter has nothing to do with the other," said Orange sharply. "Kindly bring back the jewelry first, and then we will discuss matters further!"

"None of your impudence, Miss!" replied the other, annoyed at the double rebuff: "In other places people still have compassion for their old nurses. But here they are stingy, and if the account does not tally to the dot there is a hue and cry, and tales are told. Not even your own relative, Miss Chou-yen, fared any better. All the time the poor young lady lived here she had to scrape a tael every month from her miserable bit of pocket money and hand it out to her mother. Was that noble or generous? No wonder that the poor young lady was always short of everything. And who was it who always helped her out? My mother-in-law. Up to thirty taels at the very least she paid out of her own pocket in this way up to today. And who repays her the loss, eh?"

Orange was going to reply angrily, but Ying Ch'un touched to the quick by the all-too-well-merited reproach, stopped her from speaking.

"Enough of this quarrelling! I relinquish the jewelry," she decided. "If my mother asks about it, I will just say that I have lost it. And that settles the matter. And now go away! But you bring me tea!" she said, turning to Orange. Muttering and sulking, Orange went off to the kitchen,

but Greeting of Spring lay down full length and casually took up a book.

It was a day full of exasperation for the worried Madame Hsi-feng. In the morning there was the bother about the happenings in the park, of which of course she had to bear the brunt. In the afternoon there was still another worry. The approaching Mid-Autumn Festival would have to be financed, but the funds were exhausted and the new rents had not yet come in. She had

to send Yüan Yang to a lumber-room in the dwelling of the Ancestress to get an ancient, dusty trunk full of old jewelry, and to pawn the contents, which brought in a thousand taels.

And she heard from Chia Lien that the matter had got to the ears of her aunt through Numskull. How exasperating! So the Ancestress would also hear about it, and that would mean a reprimand.

While she was still discussing this latest mishap with P'ing Erh, her aunt, Madame Cheng,

was suddenly announced. Without uttering a word, and showing every sign of the greatest agitation on her face, the Tai tai rushed into the room and sank down groaning on the divan.

At a sign P'ing Erh and the other waiting maids had to leave the room. The Tai tai now pulled out of her sleeve pocket a brightly embroidered perfume bag, and with tears in her eyes silently held it up to Hsi-feng.

"Where on earth did you get such a thing?" asked Hsi-feng after she had noted with horror the indecent picture on the bag.

"Where did I get it?" replied the Tai tai in a tone of suppressed excitement. "It was lying about in broad daylight between the rocks in the park. Numskull found it and was already on her way to show it to the Ancestress. Luckily, Sister-in-law Shieh took it from her on the way;

otherwise the Ancestress would have seen it, and then Oh, I don't dare think of it! I am beside myself. I thought I could rely on you, and now you do this to me! How on earth could you be so thoughtless as to leave the thing lying about in the park?"

"But why do you assume that the thing belongs to me?" asked Hsi-feng, turning pale.

"Who else could it be but you? We others are middle-aged women, and long past such

frivolities. Or could it possibly be one of the young girls in the park? No! There can be no question of that! No! It must have come originally from your husband. How like that incorrigibly frivolous fellow! You two are still young people, after all, and young people do find pleasure in silly trifles of the kind. Everyone knows that. You need not deny it. It is only lucky that it was not found by any of the park staff. That would have caused talk! Your cousins would have fallen into disrepute. And what if the innocent creatures themselves had caught sight,of it? Oh, I dare not even think of that!"

Flushing and turning pale alternately, Hsi-feng had listened to the Tai tai. Now she threw herself at her feet.

"You are quite right, Aunt, but I assure you that I have never possessed such a bag, and I have no idea how it got into the park," she protested with tears.. "Just look closely at this thing with its tassels. It is a cheap street-market article, a bad imitation of a palace pattern. I have

never liked such tawdry stuff. But if I possessed anything of that kind I would have hidden it carefully and not have carried it around with me openly, or taken it into the park, where my cousins might possibly see it. How could you think me capable of such thoughtlessness?

After all, I am not the only youngish woman in the palace. Over in the eastern palace there is Sister-in-law Chen, whom one can hardly regard yet as belonging to the older set, and there is her daughter-in-law Yung and her people, and there are various young women servants, and the park is just as open to all of them as it is to me. Or perhaps the owner is even one of the park staff herself. Among so many people it is impossible to keep a watch on the behavior of each individual. How can one know if this or that woman may be carrying on some secret love intrigue with some friend among the male staff? Why is it just I who am suspected?"

The Tai tai could not close her ears to the logic of Hsi-feng's words.

"Do get up!" she said, placated. "I know well that you are the best of all the young women of the family, and the one least capable of any impropriety. I have done you an injustice. But what shall we do now? I was almost frightened to death when your mother-in-law sent me this disgusting object just now."

"Do not worry. I know what to do. Above all, we must avoid any fuss, in order to spare the old Tai tai any new excitements. As it is, the dismissals of today have left some gaps among the older supervisory staff over there. Let us, for the time being, send some women supervisors

over from this side women whom we know thoroughly well and can rely upon, such as the wives of the stewards Chou Jui and Lai Wang, and have investigations made quietly,

ostensibly in connection with the forbidden gambling. In this way, this and that offense will come to Kght and offer us an opportunity to weed out and dismiss any undesirable maids from among the older staff. We have far too many marriageable young women over there!

Very well! Let them marry! A reduction in the staff is also very desirable for reasons of economy. What do you think?"

"You are quite right; I am in full agreement," replied the Tai tai with a sigh. "On the other hand,

I would not like to be unfair to our young girls. After all, each of them has only got three useful waiting maids at her disposal. The remaining little devils hardly count, on the whole, though one would not like to deprive the girls of their service and their company completely. That

would be neither in accordance with my ideas nor those of the old Tai tai. The best thing is for me to look into the matter myself as soon as I have time. Meanwhile the women supervisors whom you suggest can take up their posts over there and quietly make investigations."

Hsi-feng had the five reliable elderly ladies whom she had in mind brought in, and gave them the necessary instructions. The Tai tai Cheng added to these five the wife of the steward Wang Shan Pao, who had come in by chance to eavesdrop. She was one of Princess Shieh's serving women and enjoyed her special confidence, and it was she who had brought over the aforementioned perfume bag.

"Ask your mistress if she would send you for a time to the park as supervisor, as a special favor for me," Madame Cheng said to her. She was anxious to forestall any possible later reproaches regarding partiality. This sixth woman received the order with secret satisfaction.

Here was a welcome opportunity to get her own back at last on the waiting maids in the park.

She had never had a good word for that high-spirited, conceited lot, who showed her scant respect whenever she went into the park.

"There is no need to waste words on the subject; a strict investiga-tion over in the park is long overdue," she growled. "You do not really go into the park much,

Tai tai, so you could not know what goes on there. Those young things, the waiting maids, are as arrogant as if they themselves were real highborn 'Miss Thousand-Gold-Pieces' with Imperial titles of honor. The like of us dare not open our mouths or they at once put on airs of being offended and accuse us of persecuting them and intriguing against them. It's a nice

state of affairs, indeed ! "

"Well, they are no doubt our elite. No wonder that they think something of themselves," said

Madame Cheng with a smile.

"That may be true of the others, but one of them, the maid Ch'ing Wen who serves our young master Pao-yü, is a really bad lot," continued the sixth vehemently. "She is certainly pretty,

but does the conceited thing have to deck herself out on that account day after day, as if she was a Hsi Shih? And how brazenly and pertly she answers us back and rebels if one of us dares to make the slightest remark; you wouldn't believe it!"

Madame Cheng was astonished.

"Perhaps that is the one who struck me so unpleasantly by the loud, quarrelsome way she rebuked a maid in the Begonia Courtyard the last time we went for a walk in the park with the old Tai tai?" she said, turning to Hsi-feng. "I mean the one with the eel-like figure, and the narrow, sloping shoulders, and the undivided Hsi Shih eyebrows, which remind me of Tai-yü's

brows. I intended to rebuke her for her unseemly behavior, but I couldn't because I was tied to the old Tai tai, and later it slipped my mind."

"By your description it may have been she; but I cannot remember exactly," said Hsi-feng.

"This Ch'ing Wen is no doubt pretty, but she is also an impudent, frivolous person."

"Just send for her, Tai tai! Then it can be seen if your surmise is correct," suggested the sixth.

Madame Cheng followed her advice and ordered Ch'ing Wen to be sent for. Ch'ing Wen was not feeling well that day and had got up reluctantly from her bed when she was called. Now she appeared half dressed, flushed from sleep, and with dishevelled hair before the Tai tai.

With a hasty glance of displeasure the Tai tai recognized her as the one she had recently encountered.

"So this is our lovely sick Hsi Shih," she remarked mockingly. "For whom do you put on all that vanity? You think, I suppose, that I do not see through you? Just wait, very soon I will have you skinned alive! How is my son Pao-yü,?" she continued in an unfriendly tone.

Being quick-witted, Ch'ing Wen rapidly recovered from her first surprise and grasped the danger of her position, which demanded the utmost tact in her answers.She quickly fell on her knees.

"I really would not know, I so seldom come into the young gentle-man's vicinity," she lied.

"The Tai tai should inquire of his personal waiting maids, She Yüe and Hsi Jen."

"You deserve a slap on your mouth ! Simply pretending not to know anything! What are your duties?" asked the Tai tai sternly.

"I used to serve the old Tai tai, but because Master Pao-yü, sometimes felt nervous and lonely in the big park I was later assigned to the Begonia Courtyard and I do night watch there in the outer chambers. Really I did not want to go, and I asked the old Tai tai to keep me with her, as I thought I was too unskillful to serve the young gentleman. But the old Tai tai scolded me and said that my work over there would not call for any special intelligence, and that I would have nothing to do with the personal affairs of the young gentleman. And so I gave in. I hardly ever meet the young gentleman, no more than once in a fortnight, when he calls me,

and then I exchange a few words with him. His serving women and the waiting maids She Yüe, Hsi Jen, and Ch'iu Wen do all the personal attendance. Besides, I frequently spend hours of leisure with the old Tai tai doing needlework. So I scarcely ever have to look after the young gentleman. But if you wish, I can do so from now on."

"By Buddha, I am glad to hear that you have so little to do in his vicinity!" cried Madame Cheng, who took what the girl had said to be perfectly true. "I certainly don't intend to ask you to spend more time with your master in future. On the contrary, I shall ask the old Tai tai to

take you away again. Until then, keep an eye on her! Do not allow her to be near him at night!" she said, turning to the six supervisors. And then to Ch'ing Wen: "Get out! What are you lingering here for? The sight of you gets on my nerves!" Ch'ing Wen slipped out quickly.

The Tai tai angrily muttered something which sounded like "Witch" and "Seducer" as she went out, and ordered that a strict house-to-house search should take place in the park that same evening. Early at night, after the Ancestress had retired, Hsi-feng set out on her tour of 'inspection with the overseers. All the park gates had to be locked after them when they had

entered. The search started in the apartments of the night watch staff. There a slight excess over the prescribed stocks of lamps, candles, and oil was discovered.

"That counts as stolen property. It is not to be touched until I inform the Tai tai in the morning!" the wife of the steward Wang Shan Pao declared severely. Then they went on to the Begonia Courtyard.

"We are looking for a valuable object which has b