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But the spirits of the flowers were, at the time, silent and devoid of feeling, the birds were plunged in dreams and in a state of stupor, so why did they start? A stanza appositely assigns the reason: P'in Erh's mental talents and looks must in the world be rare . Alone, clasped in a subtle smell, she quits her maiden room.
Furtively peeping through an aperture in the fence, Pao-yue saw a young girl squatting under the flowers and digging the ground with a hair-pin she held in her hand. As she dug, she silently gave way to tears. "Can it be possible," mused Pao-yue, "that this girl too is stupid? Can she also be following P'in Erh's example and come to inter flowers?
"An iron kettle and an iron shovel," hastily chimed in Tai-yue with a smile full of irony. "To do what with them?" Pao-ch'ai inquired. "You ask for fresh ginger, soy and all these condiments, so I indent for an iron kettle for you to cook the paints and eat them." Tai-yue answered, to the intense merriment of one and all, who gave way to laughter. "What do you, P'in Erh, know about these things?"
"Why," Pao-ch'ai remonstrated, "do you bring such trouble upon yourself? It's that P'in Erh, who has led you on to it! But I'll settle accounts with her! You've all along been a thick-headed fool; but now that you've burdened yourself with all this, you've become a greater fool." "Miss," smiled Hsiang Ling, "don't confuse me."
Worse than her is that P'in Erh with that coarse tongue! She has recourse to the devices of the 'Ch'un Ch'iu'! By selecting, from the vulgar expressions used in low slang, the most noteworthy points, she eliminates what's commonplace, and makes, with the addition of a little elegance and finish, her style so much like that of the text that each sentence has a peculiar character of its own!
"I'll give you a style," suggested Pao-yue smilingly; "won't the double style 'P'in P'in, 'knitting brows, do very well?" "From what part of the standard books does that come?" T'an Ch'un hastily interposed. Besides the eyebrows of this cousin taper in a way, as if they were contracted, so that the selection of these two characters is most appropriate, isn't it?"
Pao-yue quickly put out his tongue and stopped his mouth with his hand. "How fortunate," he inwardly soliloquised, "that I didn't make any reckless remark! It was all because of my inconsiderate talk on the last two occasions, that P'in Erh got angry with me, and that Pao-ch'ai felt hurt. And had I now given them offence also, I would have been in a still more awkward fix!"
"The three girls Hsing Chou-yen, Li Wen and Li Ch'i, failed just now to do justice to their talents; besides they are visitors; and as Ch'in Erh, P'in Erh and Yuen Erh got the best of us by a good deal, it's only right that none of us should compose any more, and that that trio should only do so."
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