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This was more of a stream, very narrow, just wide enough for one boat to pass. On both sides of the bank were planted drooping willow trees that reminded me of the Chinese Fairy tales I have read. This time I saw the servant girls, amahs, and also eunuchs carrying boxes, walking on both sides of the shore. Only two boats were going then, the Young Empress' and ours.

"Put back the kitchen gods," said Foh-Kyung. "We will live and believe and die even as our fathers have done. The gate to the God of love is closed." The feast was served. In the sky one moon blotted out a world of stars. Foh-Kyung sat alone, smoking. Laughter and talk filled the women's wing. The amahs and coolies were resting outside.

When she had entered the chair to go to the Audience Hall, the Emperor and Young Empress and we all followed in our usual places, the eunuchs, amahs and servant girls carrying all the things exactly the same as was done the first day I came to the Palace. When we arrived at the Audience Hall, we took our places behind the big screen and the audience commenced.

Then I began to enjoy myself. There were several open boats full of eunuchs, and another one of servant girls, amahs and the rest with Her Majesty's luncheon. The lake was beautiful and looked so green in the sun. I told Her Majesty that this color reminded me of the sea. She said: "You have travelled so much, and yet you have not had enough, but are still thinking of the sea.

They had a ring. At the supper there were six tables full of men, and three partly full of women and children. Women take their children and their amahs everywhere in China I mean wherever they go and provided they want to; it is the custom. None of the men spoke to the women at the wedding except rare returned students. Eggs cost $1.00 for 120 we get all we want in our boarding house.

But they were not playing then and came back, some of them with their children, and sat in the rows of chairs, sixteen of them, and some amahs around the room, while I talked to them. I told stories about what the American women did in the war and they stared with amazement. I had to explain what a gas mask is, but they knew what killing is and what high class is.

First, before she went, she cast the two kitchen gods, green and gold, of ancient plaster, into the embers of the fire. There in the morning the cook-rice amahs found the onyx stones that had been their eyes. The house was still unlocked, the gate-keeper at the feast. Like a shadow she moved along the wall and through the gate. The smell of the lilies blew past her.

In the ancestral hall the great wife had lit the red candles, speared on their slender spikes, before the tablets. In the kitchen the cooks and amahs were busy with the feast-cooking. Candles were stuck everywhere on the tables and benches. They threw little pools of light on the floor before the stove and looked at the empty niche.