For both these young men Jasmine had a liking, but there was no question as to which she preferred.  As she herself said, “Wei is pleasant enough as a companion, but if I had to look to one of them for an act of true friendship—­or as a lover,” she mentally added—­“I should turn at once to Tu.”  It was one of her amusements to compare the young men in her mind, and one day when so occupied Tu suddenly looked up from his book and said to her: 

“What a pity it is that the gods have made us both men!  If I were a woman, the object of my heart would be to be your wife, and if you were a woman, there is nothing I should like better than to be your husband.”

Jasmine blushed up to the roots of her hair at having her own thoughts thus capped, as it were; but before she could answer, Wei broke in with: 

“What nonsense you talk!  And why, I should like to know, should you be the only one the ‘young noble’ might choose, supposing he belonged to the other sex?”

“You are both talking nonsense,” said Jasmine, who had had time to recover her composure, “and remind me of my two old childless aunts,” she added, laughing, “who are always quarrelling about the names they would have given their children if the goddess Kwanyin had granted them any half a century ago.  As a matter of act, we are three friends reading for our M.A. degrees, neither more nor less.  And I will trouble you, my elder brother,” she added, turning to Tu, “to explain to me what the poet means by the expression ‘tuneful Tung’ in the line: 

     ‘The greedy flames devour the tuneful Tung.’”

A learned disquisition by Tu on the celebrated musician who recognised the sonorous qualities of a piece of Tung timber burning in the kitchen fire effectually diverted the conversation from the inconvenient direction it had taken, and shortly afterward Jasmine took her leave.

Haunted by the thought of what had passed, she wandered on to the veranda of her archery pavilion, and while gazing half unconsciously heavenward her eyes were attracted by a hawk which flew past and alighted on a tree beyond the boundary-wall, and in front of the study she had lately left.  In a restless and thoughtless mood, she took up her bow and arrow, and with unerring aim compassed the death of her victim.  No sooner, however, had the hawk fallen, carrying the arrow with it, than she remembered that her name was inscribed on the shaft, and fearing lest it should be found by either Wei or Tu, she hurried round in the hope of recovering it.  But she was too late.  On approaching the study, she found Tu in the garden in front, examining the bird and arrow.

“Look,” he said, as he saw her coming, “what a good shot some one has made! and whoever it is, he has a due appreciation of his own skill.  Listen to these lines which are scraped on the arrow: 

     ’Do not lightly draw your bow;
     But if you must, bring down your foe.’”