moon wills it, two people find each other even if they are a thousand miles apart," remarked Aunt Hsueh with a smile. "The old man in the moon secretly seeks out his young people and binds them together with the magic red cord which he winds around their feet. When that happens, countries and seas and years may lie between them,

but his chosen young people must become man and wife in the end. None of it happens by human will. And on the other hand, two human beings may live ever so close together, and they may be solemnly destined for each other by parents and relatives, but if the old man in the moon does not knot his red cord, then, in spite of everything, they do not get each other.

Who knows how quickly it may one day happen to you two girls, even if your future husbands are in the Southern Mountains or by the Northern Sea?"

"All the same, a little motherly help could not harm us, perhaps," said Pao-ch'ai, with a laugh, nestling against her mother's breast.

"Imagine a big girl like her being petted like that! How lucky she is!" sighed Tai-yü, smiling sadly. How happy she would be if she could nestle on a motherly breast, she thought. And her eyes filled with tears.

"Don't weep, dear child!" said Aunt Hsueh, moved with pity, flicking her face with a feather duster. "I can quite understand how sad it makes you to have to look on at the caresses between a mother and daughter. But believe me, I feel for you no whit less than I do for my own daughter, but I dare not show my feelings openly, there are so many malicious tongues in the house. No one would understand that one could adopt a defenseless orphan out of pure human sympathy no, it would oe interpreted as currying favor with the old Tai tai; for the old Tai tai also has a special preference for you."

"Oh, if that is the way it is with you, Aunt, may I not look upon you as a mother?" asked Tai-yü.

"Why not? If you do not scorn me, I will willingly adopt you," replied Aunt Hsueh affectionately.

"No, that would not do," interjected Pao-ch'ai, smiling slyly.

"Why would it not do?" asked Tai-yü, surprised.

"Well, naturally, because of my brother Hsueh Pan. For after all, he is not yet married. Why do you think it was that Cousin Chou-yen has been betrothed to Cousin Hsueh Kuo and not to him?"

"Why? Presumably because he is away or because his horoscope does not agree with Chou-yen'," replied Tai-yü guilelessly.

"No, no, that's not the reason. Hsueh Pan's bride has already been chosen, and as soon as he comes back from his travels her name will be made known. Now can you guess why Mother cannot very well adopt you as a daughter? Just think hard!"

Pao-ch'ai winked gleefully at her mother as she said this, but Tai-yü, who now understood, took her. jest seriously. Horrified, she hid her face on Aunt Hsueh's breast, murmuring distractedly: "I won't! I won't!"

"Don't let her frighten you! She is only hoaxing you!" Aunt Hsueh reassured her, embracing her tenderly.

"Really, you may believe it! Mama is going to speak to the old Tai tai tomorrow and ask for your hand. Why should she waste time looking elsewhere when the right bride is here?"

continued Pao-ch'ai, persisting with her jesting.

"Oh, you're crazy!" exclaimed Tai-yü, laughing and going for Pao-ch'ai with outspread fingers as if about to claw her. Aunt Hsueh parted the two young girls, saying to her daughter as she did so: "Enough of this nonsense! Since I think even Chou-yen too good for y6ur scamp of a brother, how would I ever dream of delivering this delicate and sensitive child iiito his claws?

No ! The old Tai tai said only recently that she intends her grandson Pao-yü, for your cousin Tai-yü. And it is best so, too; for Pao-yü, is so full of peculiarities that he must have a wife who knows and understands him thoroughly, and surely only Cousin Tai-yü can do that. The old Tai tai will on no account give him a strange girl as wife."

Tai-yü had listened with growing tension, making faces at her cousin the while. Now she flushed up to the roots of her hair.

"Phew! You deserve a good spanking for enticing your mother to talk about things which should not be mentioned!" she said to Pao-ch'ai in jest, pretending indignation.

"Oh, if that is Madame's opinion, would she not go one step further and herself put in a word for my little mistress with the old Tai tai?" interjected Tzu Chuan eagerly, turning to Aunt Hsueh.

"Listen to the girl. She can hardly wait to see her young lady leave her maiden's quarters!

Probably she wants to marry herself, eh?" remarked Aunt Hsueh. Tzu Chuan turned away blushing.

"Kindly do not meddle in matters which do not concern you, you cheeky little creature!" Tai-yü

called after her, with a voice of pretended sternness. But immediately she herself had to burst out laughing.

"A-mi-to-fo, holy Buddha, what a cussed creature, chai tzu . . ."

she was in the act of continuing. But she did nol get beyond the chai; the tzu turned into a hefty sneeze, to the amusement of all present. She was about to finish the sentence she had begun wnen Little Cloud burst in, waving a piece of paper in her hand.

"Can you tell me what this funny document meaps?" she asked. "It looks like a bill."

Tai-yü was the first to look at the paper. She could not make it out either, and then Pao-ch'ai glanced at it. To her horror she recognized Chou-yen' pawn ticket, of which she knew already.

She hurriedly snatched it from Little Cloud and tried to hide it. Aunt Hsueh too had already stolen a glimpse at it.

"It's a pawn ticket," she explained to Little Cloud. "It must belong to some serving woman.

Where did you find it? The owner will miss it."

"A pawn ticket? What may that be?" asked Little Cloud naively.

"What a little noodle! She doesn't yet know what a pawn ticket is!" the women and waiting maids who were standing about exclaimed, giggling.

"What is there so funny about that?" said Aunt Hsueh reprovingly. "This ignorance is only to her credit. It shows that she is a real Miss 'Thousand-Gold-Piece,' a genuinely innocent young girl who knows nothing as yet of this wicked world. I trust that the other young ladies here are

all just the same kind of little noodles."

"Of course, of course," replied the serving women fervently, as if with one voice. "After all, Miss Tai-yü didn't know either, so the other young ladies surely cannot know. Indeed, we feel sure that even our little master, although he has been outside the house so often already, has

never seen a pawn ticket either."

Aunt Hsueh then explained briefly to the three young girls the nature and meaning of a pawn ticket.

"Oh, goodness, what funny ideas people come on in order to obtain money!" cried Tai-yü and Little Cloud, astonished, and their remark induced a further outbreak of giggles and exclamations of "little noodles" among the serving women and waiting maids.

"Where, actually, did you pick up the ticket?" Aunt Hsueh wanted to know. Little Cloud was just opening her mouth to answer when Pao-ch'ai forestalled her: "Anyhow, the ticket is expired and invalid long ago. Lotus just kept it for fun." Of course her aim was to prevent the truth from coming out and to save Cousin Chou-yen embarrassment. Aunt Hsueh was

satisfied and desisted from further questions; but later, when they were by themselves, Pao-ch'ai began questioning Little Cloud once more. Little Cloud then confessed that she had just noticed Chou-yen' maid surreptitiously slipping the ticket across to Pao-ch'ai's maid Oriole,

and had seen Oriole putting it into a book. Being curious by nature, she had taken out the ticket unobserved and, as she did not understand what it meant, had brought it in to have its purpose explained.

"So Chou-yen has pawned things? But why did she have her ticke,J sent over to your maid?"

asked Little Cloud. Realizing that she could no longer hide the true facts of the case, Pao-ch'ai confided the story to the two cousins. They were both sorry for Chou-yen and indignant that she was treated so shabbily by her rich aunt the Princess and her cousin Greeting of Spring.

"See if I do not give Cousin Greeting of Spring and her ill-behaved staff a good piece of myjnind," declared Little Cloud angrily.

She would have liked to carry out her intention straight away, but the others succeeded in dissuading her from such hasty action, which would only have brought unpleasantness to herself. They all agreed to avoid useless lecturing and instead to be nicer to Chou-yen themselves and to find a pretext for getting her away from the unpleasant company of her cousin Greeting of Spring by taking her to live with Pao-ch'ai, Little Cloud, and Lotus in the Jungle Courtyard.