This Tching-whang was a fine old fellow.  He was not a bit fashionable, and Mien-yaun liked him the better for it.  He had been educated by the bamboo, and not by masters in the arts of courtesy.  But he was a shrewd, cunning, jolly old Chinaman, and was evidently perfectly familiar with the elementary principles according to Kei-ying.  After an animated discussion of some ten minutes, it would have been difficult to determine which of the two gentlemen was most deeply imbued with a sense of the righteousness of the elementary principles.

After a proper time had elapsed, Mien-yaun was permitted the luxury of a private chat with his charmer.  What sighs, what smiles, what pleasing tremors, what soft murmurings, what pressings of the hand and throbbings of the heart were there!  The Antique, who watched the course of proceedings through a contiguous keyhole, subsequently declared that she had never in all her life witnessed so affecting a spectacle, and she was prevented from giving way to her excessive agitation only by the thought that the interruption might seriously endanger her daughter-in-law’s prospects.  The lovers, unconscious of scrutiny, made great progress.  Some doubt appeared at one time to exist as to which had first experienced the budding passion which had now blossomed so profusely; but in due time it was settled that both had suffered love at precisely the same moment, and that the first gleam of the other’s eye had kindled the flame in the bosom of each.

Towards evening, the Antique came in with a cup of tea worthy to excite a poet’s inspiration,—­and poets in China have sung the delights of tea, and written odes to teacups, too, before now.  Mien-yaun sipped it with an air of high-breeding that neither Ching-ki-pin nor her respectable mother-in-law had ever seen before.  Soon after, the enamored couple parted, with many fond protestations of faith, avowed and betrothed lovers.

Mien-yaun went home in an amatory ecstasy, and immediately exploded four bunches of crackers and blazed a Bengal light, as a slight token of his infinite happiness.

IV.

All Pekin was in an uproar.  That is to say, the three thousand eminent individuals who composed the aristocracy had nearly lost their wits.  The million and a half of common people were, of course, of no account.  Mien-yaun had given out that he was about to be married; but to whom, or to how many, remained a mystery.  No further intelligence passed his lips.  Consequently, in less than twenty-four hours there were four hundred and fifty persons who knew the lady’s name, as many more who had conversed with her upon the subject, twice as many who knew the day on which the ceremony was to take place, at least one thousand who had been invited to assist, and an infinitely greater number who simply shook their heads.  In two days the names of some hundreds of young and comely damsels were popularly accepted as the chosen