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Updated: June 4, 2025
"How is it," consequently inquired Ying Ch'un, "that I don't see cousin Liu? What a lazy girl! Is she forsooth fast asleep even at this late hour of the day?" "Wait all of you here," rejoined Pao-ch'ai, "and I'll go and shake her up and bring her." With these words, she speedily left her companions and repaired straightway into the Hsiao Hsiang lodge.
Hsueeh took their places, with due regard to the distinction between hostess and visitors; and Hsueeh Pao-ch'ai and Shih Hsiang-yuen seated themselves below. Madame Wang then came forward, and presented with her own hands tea to old lady Chia, while Li Kung-ts'ai handed a cup to Mrs. Hsueeh.
"I'll tell you a joke," replied Pao-ch'ai smiling, "when I just now said that I did not know anything about that medicine, cousin Pao-yue felt displeased." "Who cares!" shouted Lin Tai-yue. "He'll get all right shortly."
Ying Ch'un and Hsi Ch'un had a natural aversion for verses. What is more, Hsueeh Pao-ch'ai and Lin Tai-yue were present. As soon therefore as they heard these proposals, which harmonised so thoroughly with their own views, they both, with one voice, approved them as excellent.
The season was the course of the first moon, and the school was shut up for the new year holidays; while in the inner chambers the girls had put by their needlework, and were all having a time of leisure, and hence it was that when Chia Huan too came over in search of distraction, he discovered Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang Ling, Ying Erh, the three of them, in the act of recreating themselves by playing at chess.
As she spoke, one and all were highly amused. "When any mortal language finds its way into that girl Feng's mouth," Pao-ch'ai laughed, "she knows how to turn it to the best account! What a fortunate thing it is that that vixen Feng has no idea of letters and can't boast of much culture! Her forte is simply such vulgar things as suffice to raise a laugh!
And seizing the occasion, she told Pao-yue with full particulars how she had, in the game of forfeits, made an improper quotation, and what advice Pao-ch'ai had given her on the subject; how she had even sent her some birds' nests, and what they had said in the course of the chat they had had during her illness.
Besides the effect of this change on her mind, the patter of the rain on the bamboo tops intensified her despondency, and, concluding that Pao-ch'ai would be deterred from coming, she took up, in the lamp light, the first book within her reach, which turned out to be the 'Treasury of Miscellaneous Lyrics. Finding among these 'the Pinings of a maiden in autumn, 'the Anguish of Separation, and other similar poems, Tai-yue felt unawares much affected; and, unable to restrain herself from giving vent to her feelings in writing, she, there and then, improvised the following stanza, in the same strain as the one on separation; complying with the rules observed in the 'Spring River-Flower' and 'Moonlight Night. These verses, she then entitled 'the Poem on the Autumn evening, when wind and rain raged outside the window. Their burden was: In autumn, flowers decay; herbage, when autumn comes, doth yellow turn.
But what evoked in him wonder still more intense, was the sight, at an early period, of a girl seated in the room, who, in the freshness of her beauty and winsomeness of her charms, bore some resemblance to Pao-ch'ai, while, in elegance and comeliness, on the other hand, to Tai-yu.
"I couldn't stand the heat" rejoined Pao-ch'ai. "I looked on while two plays were being sung, but I found it so intensely hot, that I felt anxious to retire. But the visitors not having dispersed, I had to give as an excuse that I wasn't feeling up to the mark, and so came away at once." Pao-yue, at these words, could not but feel ill at ease. All he could do was to feign another smile.
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