“A thousand taels!” repeated Mean.  “With that sum you could—­”

“Assuredly.  The coincidence may embody something in the nature of an omen favourable to ourselves.  At the moment, however, this person has not any clear-cut perception of how the benefit may be attained.”

“The amount referred to has already passed into the hands of the merchant in burial robes?”

“Irrevocably.  In the detail of the transference of actual sums of money Wang Ho walks hand in hand with himself from door to door.  The pieces of silver are by this time beneath the floor of Shen Heng’s inner chamber.”

“Shen Heng?”

“The merchant in silk and costly fabrics, who lives beneath the sign of the Golden Abacus.  It was from him—­”

“Truly.  It is for him that this person’s sister Min works the finest embroideries.  Doubtless this very robe—­”

“It is of blue silk edged with sand pearls in a line of three depths.  Felicitations on long life and a list of the most venerable persons of all times serve to remind the controlling deities to what length human endurance can proceed if suitably encouraged.  These are designed in letters of threaded gold.  Inferior spirits are equally invoked in characters of silver.”

“The description is sharp-pointed.  It is upon this robe that the one referred to has been ceaselessly engaged for several moons.  On account of her narrow span of years, no less than her nimble-jointed dexterity, she is justly esteemed among those whose wares are guaranteed to be permeated with the spirit of rejuvenation.”

“Thereby enabling the enterprising Shen Heng to impose a special detail into his account:  ’For employing the services of one who will embroider into the fabric of the robe the vital principles of youth and long-life-to-come—­an added fifty taels.’  Did she of your house benefit to a proportionate extent?”

Mean indicated a contrary state of things by a graceful movement of her well-arranged eyebrows.

“Not only that,” she added, “but the sordid-minded Shen Heng, on a variety of pretexts, has diminished the sum Min was to receive at the completion of the work, until that which should have required a full hand to grasp could be efficiently covered by two attenuated fingers.  From this cause Min is vindictively inclined towards him and, steadfastly refusing to bend her feet in the direction of his workshop, she has, between one melancholy and another, involved herself in a dark distemper.”

As Mean unfolded the position lying between her sister Min and the merchant Shen Heng, Lin grew thoughtful, and, although it was not his nature to express the changing degrees of emotion by varying the appearance of his face, he did not conceal from Mean that her words had fastened themselves upon his imagination.

“Let us rest here a while,” he suggested presently.  “That which you say, added to what I already know, may, under the guidance of a sincere mind, put a much more rainbow-like outlook on our combined future than hitherto appeared probable.”