sewing-circle, which had met at her home, and at which she poured into the eager ears of her young companions rapturous accounts of the beauty, elegance, dignity, and tenderness of the enchanting stranger, and displayed before their dazzled eyes the lustrous jewel he had presented to her.  Having excited a great deal of envy and jealousy, she was able to rest more in peace than would otherwise have been possible.  But she had never dreamed of the real rank of her admirer.  It came upon her like a lightning-flash, and almost reduced her to a condition of temporary distraction.  As for the mother-in-law, she would infallibly have gone off into hysterics, but for the pain in her back, which the barbers—­who are also the physicians in China—­had not been able to allay.  But the sight of a peacock’s feather under her roof was better than balm to her tortured spine.  Tching-whang lost his presence of mind altogether, and violated the common decencies of life by receiving his visitor with his hat off, and taking the proffered presents with one hand,—­the other being occupied in pulling his ear, to assure himself he was not dreaming.

Mien-yaun spoke.  His voice fell like soft music on the ears of his hosts, and went straight to the innermost core of Ching-ki-pin’s heart.  He had come, he said, to give utterance to his deep grief at the mishap of yesterday, the recollection of which had harrowed his soul.  The thought of that venerable blistered back had taken away his repose, and seriously interfered with his appetite.  At the same time he could not forget his own great loss, occasioned by the unlucky spilling of the precious cup.  He was sure, that Madam, in the kindness of her heart, would overlook his fault, and consent to bestow on him another cheering, but not inebriating draught.

The Antique was overcome by so much condescension.  She could not say a word.  Tching-whang, too, remained paralyzed.  But the beauteous Ching-ki-pin, who had recovered her composure, answered with the sweetest air imaginable, and succeeded in winding another amorous chain around the already sufficiently-enslaved heart of her lover.

Presently the ice of constraint was broken, and the Antique, having once put her foot in it, plunged off into conversation with remarkable vigor.  She entertained Mien-yaun with a detailed account of her family trials, so interminable, that, with all his politeness, the young noble could not avoid gaping desperately.  Tching-whang, observing his visitor’s strait, interposed.

“What the women have lost in their feet, they have added to their tongues,” said he, quoting a Chinese proverb of great popularity.

As the Antique persisted, her husband gently reminded her that excessive talkativeness is an allowed ground for divorce in China, and, by suggesting the idea that she might possibly become the dismembered fragment of a shattered union, at length succeeded in shaming her into silence.