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Hsueeh went along with lady Feng, and the three sisters of the Chia family, and Pao-ch'ai and Pao-yue, and only returned home late in the evening. Madame Wang was sitting in Mrs. Hsueeh's apartments, whither she had just crossed, when she perceived Chia Huan come back from school, and she bade him transcribe incantations out of the Chin Kang Canon and intonate them.
Pao-yue upon hearing this, dashed the cup he held in his hand on the ground, and as it broke into small fragments, with a crash, it spattered Hsi Hsueeh's petticoat all over. "Of whose family is she the mistress?" inquired Pao-yue of Hsi Hsueeh, as he jumped up, "that you all pay such deference to her.
Dowager lady Chia at this point observed some spotless rooms on the bank, so spick and so span. "Are not these Miss Hsueeh's quarters," she asked. "Eh?" "Yes, they are!" everybody answered. Old lady Chia promptly bade them go alongside, and wending their way up the marble steps, which seemed to lead to the clouds, they in a body entered the Heng Wu court.
"Their ideas of themselves are modest, it's true, yet from all I can gather there's not one who can't versify. But should there even be any who can't, there's nothing hard about it. Just look at Hsiang Ling. Her case will show you the truth of what I say." "Of the whole lot," smiled Ch'ing Wen, "Miss Hsueeh's cousin carries the palm. What do you think about her, Miss Tertia?" "It's really so!"
Hsueeh's table, and they also replenished her cup. These two ladies lost no time in standing up, and smilingly expostulating. "Gentlemen," they said, "please take your seats. What's the use of standing on such ceremonies?" But presently every one, with the exception of the two ladies Mesdames Hsing and Wang, quitted the banquet and dropping their arms against their bodies they stood on one side.
Old lady Chia has also time after time given him wine, and if he now takes a cup or two more here, at his aunt's, lady Hsueeh's house, there's no harm that I can see. Is it perhaps, who knows, that aunt is a stranger in this establishment, and that we have in fact no right to come over here to see her?" Nurse Li was both vexed and amused by the words she had just heard.
Hsueeh's eyesight is rather dim, we'll charge her to look over our two hands a bit." "You girls know how to read and write," lady Feng remarked with a smile, addressing herself to T'an Ch'un, "and why don't you learn fortune-telling?" "This is again strange!" T'an Ch'un exclaimed.
"You might, after all, state distinctly whose relatives they are." "Your ladyship's two young sisters have come," the matrons and maids rejoined smiling. "There's also another young lady, who says she's miss Hsueeh's cousin, and a gentleman who pretends to be Mr. Hsueeh P'an's junior cousin. We are now off to ask Mrs. Hsueeh to meet them.
"We have the waiting-maids to escort us, and surely they should be enough." Mrs. Her venerable ladyship had not, as yet, had her evening repast. Hearing that they had been at Mrs. Hsueeh's, she was extremely pleased; but noticing that Pao-yue had had some wine, she gave orders that he should be taken to his room, and put to bed, and not be allowed to come out again.
The whole party waited till he had gone by, before they separated, each one to go his own way. But we need not dilate upon matters of no moment, but return to Pao-yue. On coming to the Pear Fragrance Court, he entered, first, into "aunt" Hsueeh's room, where he found her getting some needlework ready to give to the waiting-maids to work at.
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