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"When I came just now," Li Wan pursued, "I noticed them bring in two pots of white begonias, which were simply beautiful; and why should you not write some verses on them?" "Can we write verses," Ying Ch'un retorted, "before we have as yet seen anything of the flowers?"
Even when T'an Ch'un was added, they again remembered that she was only a youthful unmarried girl and that she too had ever shown herself goodnatured and kindly to a degree, so none of them worried their minds about her, and they became considerably more indolent than when they had to deal with lady Feng.
"I'm not a boor," smiled T'an Ch'un, "so when the idea casually crossed my mind, I wrote a few notes to try and see who would come. But who'd have thought that, as soon as I asked you, you would all come." "It's unfortunately late," Pao-yue smilingly observed. "We should have started this society long ago." "You can't call this late!" Tai-yue interposed, "so why give way to regret!
"We have," she smilingly rejoined, "two objects in view, the one concerns me; the other cousin Quarta; but among these are, besides, certain things said by our venerable senior." "What's up?" inquired lady Feng with a laugh. "Is it so urgent?" "Some time ago," T'an Ch'un proceeded laughingly, "we started a rhyming club; but the first meeting was not quite a success.
Hsi Ch'un had already made her appearance out of doors to welcome her, so taking the inner covered passage, they passed over to the other side and reached Hsi Ch'un's bedroom; on the door posts of which figured the three words: 'Warm fragrance isle. Several servants were at once at hand; and no sooner had they raised the red woollen portiere, than a soft fragrance wafted itself into their faces.
In the other, an additional twenty taels had been allowed, as a burial-place had to be purchased at the time. T'an Ch'un handed the accounts to Li Wan for her perusal. "Give her twenty taels," readily suggested T'an Ch'un. "Leave these accounts here for us to examine minutely." Wu Hsin-teng's wife then walked away. But unexpectedly Mrs. Chao entered the hall.
On the eleventh day of this one's determination to sustain himself by the exercise of his literary style, he was journeying about sunset towards one of these spots, subduing the grosser instincts of mankind by reviewing the wisdom of the sublime Lao Ch'un, who decided that heat and cold, pain and fatigue, and mental distress, have no real existence, and are therefore amenable to logical disproof, while the cravings of hunger and thirst are merely the superfluous attributes of a former and lower state of existence, when a passer-by, who for some distance had been alternately advancing before and remaining behind, matched his footsteps into mine.
"What do the servant-boys know?" T'an Ch'un replied. "Those you chose for me were plain yet not commonplace. Neither were they of coarse make. So were you to procure me as many as you can get of them, I'll work you a pair of slippers like those I gave you last time, and spend twice as much trouble over them as I did over that pair you have. Now, what do you say to this bargain?"
"The various expenses on behalf of the young men," T'an Ch'un added, "are invariably paid in monthly instalments to the respective households. For cousin Chia Huan's, Mrs. Chao receives two taels. For Pao-yue's, Hsi Jen draws two taels from our venerable senior's suite of apartments. For cousin Chia Lan's, some one, in our senior lady's rooms, gets the proper allowance.
But you haven't as well any face, so don't let's speak of myself." "It was really on account of this," T'an Ch'un smiled, "that I said that I didn't presume to disregard right and to violate propriety." While she spoke, she resumed her seat, and taking up the accounts, she turned them over for Mrs. Chao to glance at, after which she read them out to her for her edification.
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