and come over, dragging Pan Erh; and, licking her lips and smacking her mouth, she expressed her thanks.
Lady Feng smiled. “Do pray sit down,” she said, “and listen to what I’m going to tell you. What you, old lady, meant a little while back to convey, I’m already as much as yourself well acquainted with! Relatives, as we are, we shouldn’t in fact have waited until you came to the threshold of our doors, but ought, as is but right, to have attended to your needs. But the thing is that, of late, the household affairs are exceedingly numerous, and our lady, advanced in years as she is, couldn’t at a moment, it may possibly be, bethink herself of you all! What’s more, when I took over charge of the management of the menage, I myself didn’t know of all these family connections! Besides, though to look at us from outside everything has a grand and splendid aspect, people aren’t aware that large establishments have such great hardships, which, were we to recount to others, they would hardly like to credit as true. But since you’ve now come from a great distance, and this is the first occasion that you open your mouth to address me, how can I very well allow you to return to your home with empty hands! By a lucky coincidence our lady gave, yesterday, to the waiting-maids, twenty taels to make clothes with, a sum which they haven’t as yet touched, and if you don’t despise it as too little, you may take it home as a first instalment, and employ it for your wants.”
When old goody Liu heard the mention made by lady Feng of their hardships, she imagined that there was no hope; but upon hearing her again speak of giving her twenty taels, she was exceedingly delighted, so much so that her eyebrows dilated and her eyes gleamed with smiles.
“We too know,” she smilingly remarked, “all about difficulties! but the proverb says, ‘A camel dying of leanness is even bigger by much than a horse!’ No matter what those distresses may be, were you yet to pluck one single hair from your body, my old friend, it would be stouter than our own waist.”
Chou Jui’s wife stood by, and on hearing her make these coarse utterances, she did all she could to give her a hint by winking, and make her desist. Lady Feng laughed and paid no heed; but calling P’ing Erh, she bade her fetch the parcel of money, which had been given to them the previous day, and to also bring a string of cash; and when these had been placed before goody Liu’s eyes: “This is,” said lady Feng, “silver to the amount of twenty taels, which was for the time given to these young girls to make winter clothes with; but some other day, when you’ve nothing to do, come again on a stroll, in evidence of the good feeling which should exist between relatives. It’s besides already late, and I don’t wish to detain you longer and all for no purpose; but, on your return home, present my compliments to all those of yours to whom I should send them.”
As she spake, she stood up. Old goody Liu gave utterance to a thousand and ten thousand expressions of gratitude, and taking the silver and cash, she followed Chou Jui’s wife on her way to the out-houses. “Well, mother dear,” inquired Mrs. Chou, “what did you think of my lady that you couldn’t speak; and that whenever you opened your mouth it was all ‘your nephew.’ I’ll make just one remark, and I don’t mind if you do get angry. Had he even been your kindred nephew, you should in fact have been somewhat milder in your language; for that gentleman, Mr. Jung, is her kith and kin nephew, and whence has appeared such another nephew of hers (as Pan Erh)?”
Old goody Liu smiled. “My dear sister-in-law,” she replied, “as I gazed upon her, were my heart and eyes, pray, full of admiration or not? and how then could I speak as I should?”
As they were chatting, they reached Chou Jui’s house. They had been sitting for a while, when old goody Liu produced a piece of silver, which she was purposing to leave behind, to be given to the young servants in Chou Jui’s house to purchase fruit to eat; but how could Mrs. Chou satiate her eye with such a small piece of silver? She was determined in her refusal to accept it, so that old goody Liu, after assuring her of her boundless gratitude, took her departure out of the back gate she had come in from.
Reader, you do not know what happened after old goody Liu left, but listen to the explanation which will be given in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII.
Presentation of artificial flowers made in the Palace — Chia Lien disports himself with Hsi-feng — Pao-yü meets Ch’in Chung at a family party.
To resume our narrative. Chou Jui’s wife having seen old goody Liu off, speedily came to report the visit to madame Wang; but, contrary to her expectation, she did not find madame Wang in the drawing-room; and it was after inquiring of the waiting-maids that she eventually learnt that she had just gone over to have a chat with “aunt” Hsüeh. Mrs. Chou, upon hearing this, hastily went out by the eastern corner door, and through the yard on the east, into the Pear Fragrance Court.
As soon as she reached the entrance, she caught sight of madame Wang’s waiting-maid, Chin Ch’uan-erh, playing about on the terrace steps, with a young girl, who had just let her hair grow. When they saw Chou Jui’s wife approach, they forthwith surmised that she must have some message to deliver, so they pursed up their lips and directed her to the inner-room. Chou Jui’s wife gently raised the curtain-screen, and upon entering discovered madame Wang, in voluble conversation with “aunt” Hsüeh, about family questions and people in general.
Mrs. Chou did not venture to disturb them, and accordingly came into the inner room, where she found Hsüeh Pao-ch’ai in a house dress, with her hair simply twisted into a knot round the top of the head, sitting on the inner edge of the stove-couch, leaning on a small divan table, in the act of copying a pattern for embroidery, with the waiting-maid Ying Erh. When she saw her enter, Pao Ch’ai hastily put down her pencil, and turning round with a face beaming with smiles, “Sister Chou,” she said, “take a seat.”
Chou Jui’s wife likewise promptly returned the smile.
“How is my young lady?” she inquired, as she sat down on the edge of the couch. “I haven’t seen you come over on the other side for two or three days! Has Mr. Pao-yü perhaps given you offence?”
“What an idea!” exclaimed Pao Ch’ai, with a smile. “It’s simply that I’ve had for the last couple of days my old complaint again, and that I’ve in consequence kept quiet all this time, and looked after myself.”
“Is that it?” asked Chou Jui’s wife; “but after all, what rooted kind of complaint are you subject to, miss? you should lose really no time in sending for a doctor to diagnose it, and give you something to make you all right. With your tender years, to have an organic ailment is indeed no trifle!”
Pao Ch’ai laughed when she heard these remarks.
“Pray,” she said, “don’t allude to this again; for this ailment of mine I’ve seen, I can’t tell you, how many doctors; taken no end of medicine and spent I don’t know how much money; but the more we did so, not the least little bit of relief did I see. Lucky enough, we eventually came across a bald-pated bonze, whose speciality was the cure of nameless illnesses. We therefore sent for him to see me, and he said that I had brought this along with me from the womb as a sort of inflammatory virus, that luckily I had a constitution strong and hale so that it didn’t matter; and that it would be of no avail if I took pills or any medicines. He then told me a prescription from abroad, and gave me also a packet of a certain powder as a preparative, with a peculiar smell and strange flavour. He advised me, whenever my complaint broke out, to take a pill, which would be sure to put me right again. And this has, after all, strange to say, done me a great deal of good.”
“What kind of prescription is this one from abroad, I wonder,” remarked Mrs. Chou; “if you, miss, would only tell me, it would be worth our while bearing it in mind, and recommending it to others: and if ever we came across any one afflicted with this disease, we would also be doing a charitable deed.”
“You’d better not ask for the prescription,” rejoined