neither had her ailment aggravated, nor had it undergone any marked improvement, madame Wang explained to dowager lady Chia, that as a complaint of this nature had reached this kind of season without getting any worse, there was some hope of recovery.
“Of course there is!” observed the old lady; “what a dear child she is! should anything happen to her, won’t it be enough to make people die from grief!” and as she spake she felt for a time quite sore at heart. “You and she,” continuing, she said to lady Feng, “have been friends for ever so long; to-morrow is the glorious first (and you can’t go), but after to-morrow you should pay her a visit and minutely scrutinise her appearance: and should you find her any better, come and tell me on your return! Whatever things that dear child has all along a fancy for, do send her round a few even as often as you can by some one or other!”
Lady Feng assented to each of her recommendations; and when the second arrived, she came, after breakfast, to the Ning mansion to see how Mrs. Ch’in was getting on; and though she found her none the worse, the flesh all over her face and person had however become emaciated and parched up. She readily sat with Mrs. Ch’in for a long while, and after they had chatted on one thing and another, she again reiterated the assurances that this illness involved no danger, and distracted her for ever so long.
“Whether I get well or not,” observed Mrs. Ch’in, “we’ll know in spring; now winter is just over, and I’m anyhow no worse, so that possibly I may get all right; and yet there’s no saying; but, my dear sister-in-law, do press our old lady to compose her mind! yesterday, her ladyship sent me some potato dumplings, with minced dates in them, and though I had two, they seem after all to be very easily digested!”
“I’ll send you round some more to-morrow,” lady Feng suggested; “I’m now going to look up your mother-in-law, and will then hurry back to give my report to our dowager lady.”
“Please, sister-in-law,” Mrs. Ch’in said, “present my best respects to her venerable ladyship, as well as to madame Wang.”
Lady Feng signified that she would comply with her wishes, and, forthwith leaving the apartment, she came over and sat in Mrs. Yu’s suite of rooms.
“How do you, who don’t see our son’s wife very often, happen to find her?” inquired Mrs. Yu.
Lady Feng drooped her head for some time. “There’s no help,” she ventured, “for this illness! but you should likewise make every subsequent preparation, for it would also be well if you could scour it away.”
“I’ve done so much as to secretly give orders,” replied Mrs. Yu, “to get things ready; but for that thing (the coffin), there’s no good timber to be found, so that it will have to be looked after by and by.”
Lady Feng swallowed hastily a cup of tea, and after a short chat, “I must be hurrying back,” she remarked, “to deliver my message to our dowager lady!”
“You should,” urged Mrs. Yu, “be sparse in what you tell her lady ship so as not to frighten an old person like her!”
“I know well enough what to say,” replied lady Feng.
Without any further delay, lady Feng then sped back. On her arrival at home she looked up the old lady. “Brother Jung’s wife,” she explained, “presents her compliments, and pays obeisance to your venerable ladyship; she says that she’s much better, and entreats you, her worthy senior, to set your mind at ease! That as soon as she’s a little better she will come and prostrate herself before your ladyship.”
“How do you find her?” inquired dowager lady Chia.
“For the present there’s nothing to fear,” continued lady Feng; “for her mien is still good.”
After the old lady had heard these words, she was plunged for a long while in deep reflection; and as she turned towards lady Feng, “Go and divest yourself of your toilette,” she said, “and have some rest.”
Lady Feng in consequence signified her obedience, and walked away, returning home after paying madame Wang a visit. P’ing Erh helped lady Feng to put on the house costume, which she had warmed by the fire, and lady Feng eventually took a seat and asked “whether there was anything doing at home?”
P’ing Erh then brought the tea, and after going over to hand the cup: “There’s nothing doing,” she replied; “as regards the interest on the three hundred taels, Wang Erh’s wife has brought it in, and I’ve put it away. Besides this, Mr. Jui sent round to inquire if your ladyship was at home or not, as he meant to come and pay his respects and to have a chat.”
“Heng!” exclaimed lady Feng at these words. “Why should this beast compass his own death? we’ll see when he comes what is to be done.”
“Why is this Mr. Jui so bent upon coming?’ P’ing Erh having inquired, lady Feng readily gave her an account of how she had met him in the course of the ninth moon in the Ning mansion, and of what had been said by him.
“What a mangy frog to be bent upon eating the flesh of a heavenly goose!” ejaculated P’ing Erh. “A stupid and disorderly fellow with no conception of relationship, to harbour such a thought! but we’ll make him find an unnatural death!”
“Wait till he comes,” added lady Feng, “when I feel certain I shall find some way.”
What happened, however, when Chia Jui came has not, as yet, been ascertained, but listen, reader, to the explanation given in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XII.
Wang Hsi-feng maliciously lays a trap for Chia Jui, under pretence that his affection is reciprocated — Chia T’ien-hsiang gazes at the face of the mirror of Voluptuousness.
Lady Feng, it must be noticed in continuation of our narrative, was just engaged in talking with P’ing Erh, when they heard some one announce that Mr. Jui had come. Lady Feng gave orders that he should be invited to step in, and Chia Jui perceiving that he had been asked to walk in was at heart elated at the prospect of seeing her.
With a face beaming with smiles, Lady Feng inquired again and again how he was; and, with simulated tenderness she further pressed him to take a seat and urged him to have a cup of tea.
Chia Jui noticed how still more voluptuous lady Feng looked in her present costume, and, as his eyes burnt with love, “How is it,” he inquired, “that my elder brother Secundus is not yet back?”
“What the reason is I cannot tell,” lady Feng said by way of reply.
“May it not be,” Chia Jui smilingly insinuated, “that some fair damsel has got hold of him on the way, and that he cannot brook to tear himself from her to come home?”
“That makes it plain that there are those among men who fall in love with any girl they cast their eyes on,” hinted lady Feng.
“Your remarks are, sister-in-law, incorrect, for I’m none of this kind!” Chia Jui explained smirkingly.
“How many like you can there be!” rejoined lady Feng with a sarcastic smile; “in ten, not one even could be picked out!”
When Chia Jui heard these words, he felt in such high glee that he rubbed his ears and smoothed his cheeks. “My sister-in-law,” he continued, “you must of course be extremely lonely day after day.”
“Indeed I am,” observed lady Feng, “and I only wish some one would come and have a chat with me to break my dull monotony.”
“I daily have ample leisure,” Chia Jui ventured with a simper, “and wouldn’t it be well if I came every day to dispel your dulness, sister-in-law?”
“You are simply fooling