Mien-yaun speedily learned that his fair friend’s name was Ching-ki-pin; that she was the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, named Tching-whang, who owned extensive porcelain-factories at the North, and was besides a considerable tobacco-planter; that her father was very kind to her, but that the old woman, who was not her own mother, treated her very cruelly; that her father married this ancient virago for her wealth, and now repented the rash step, but found it impossible to retrace it, as the law of China allows no divorces excepting when the wife has parents living to receive and shelter her; and the obnoxious woman being nearly a hundred years old herself, this was out of the question.  When he had learned so much, they were interrupted by the reappearance of the Antique, who brought with her the cup of tea, most carefully prepared.  In deep abstraction, Mien-yaun seized it, and, instead of drinking the boiling beverage, poured it upon the old woman’s back, scalding her to such a degree that her shrieks resounded through the neighborhood.  Then dropping the cup upon the ground, he put his heel into it, and, with a burning glance of love at Ching-ki-pin, strode, melancholy, away.

III.

All that night, Mien-yaun’s heart was troubled.  The tranquillizing finger of Sleep never touched his eyelids.  At earliest dawn he arose, and devoted some hours to the consideration of his costume.  Never before had he murmured at his wardrobe; now everything seemed unworthy of the magnitude of the occasion.  Finally, after many doubts and inward struggles, and much bewilderment and desperation, the thing was done.  He issued forth in a blaze of splendor, preceded by two servants bearing rare and costly presents.  His raiment was a masterpiece of artistic effect.  He wore furs from Russia, and cotton from Bombay; his breast sparkled with various orders of nobility; his slippers glistened with gems; his hat was surmounted with the waving feather of the peacock.  Turning neither to the right nor to the left, he made his way to the residence of Tching-whang.  At the portal he paused, and sent in before him his card,—­a sheet of bright red paper,—­with a list of the presents he designed to offer the family whose acquaintance he desired to cultivate.

As he had expected, his reception was most cordial.  Though his person was unknown, the magic of his name was not unfelt, even in the regions of the Kung.  A prince of the peacock’s feather was no common visitor to the home of a plebeian manufacturer; and when that prince was found to be in addition the leader of the fashions and the idol of the aristocracy, the marvel assumed a miraculous character.  The guest was ushered in with many low obeisances.  How the too gay Ching-ki-pin regretted those unlucky telegraphic kisses!  What would he think of her?  She, too, had passed a most unquiet night, but had been able to relieve her feelings to some extent at the