“So,” said he at last, “you deceitful little hussy, you have been deceiving me all these years by passing yourself off as a man, when in reality you are a girl.”

Overcome with confusion, Jasmine hung her head, and murmured: 

“Who has betrayed me?”

“You have betrayed yourself,” said Tu, holding up the incriminating document; “and here we have the story of the arrow with which you shot the hawk, but what the box of precious ointment means I don’t know.”

Confronted with this overwhelming evidence, poor Jasmine remained speechless, and dared not even lift her eyes to glance at Tu.  That young man, seeing her distress, and being in no wise possessed by the scorn which he had put into his tone, crossed over to her and gently led her to a seat by him.

“Do you remember,” he said, in so altered a voice that Jasmine’s heart ceased to throb as if it wished to force an opening through the finely formed bosom which enclosed it, “on one occasion in our study at home I wished that you were a woman that you might become my wife?  Little did I think that my wish might be gratified.  Now it is, and I beseech you to let us join our lives in one, and seek the happiness of the gods in each other’s perpetual presence.”

But, as if suddenly recollecting herself, Jasmine withdrew her hand from his, and, standing up before him with quivering lip and eyes full of tears, said: 

“No.  It can never be.”

“Why not?” said Tu, in alarmed surprise.

“Because I am bound to Wei.”

“What!  Does Wei know your secret?”

“No.  But do you remember when I shot that arrow in front of your study?”

“Perfectly,” said Tu.  “But what has that to do with it?”

“Why, Wei discovered my name on the shaft, and I, to keep my secret, told him that it was my sister’s name.  He then wanted to marry my sister, and I undertook, fool that I was, to arrange it for him.  Now I shall be obliged to confess the truth, and he will have a right to claim me instead of my supposed sister.”

“But,” said Tu, “I have a prior right to that of Wei, for it was I who found the arrow.  And in this matter I shall be ready to outface him at all hazards.  But,” he added, “Wei, I am sure, is not the man to take an unfair advantage of you.”

“Do you really think so?” asked Jasmine.

“Certainly I do,” said Tu.

“Then—­then—­I shall be—­very glad,” said poor Jasmine, hesitatingly, overcome with bashfulness, but full of joy.

At which gracious consent Tu recovered the hand which had been withdrawn from his, and Jasmine sank again into the chair at his side.

“But, Tu, dear,” she said, after a pause, “there is something else that I must tell you before I can feel that my confessions are over.”

“What!  You have not engaged yourself to any one else, have you?” said Tu, laughing.

“Yes, I have,” she replied, with a smile; and she then gave her lover a full and particular account of how Mr. King had proposed to her on behalf of his cousin, and how she had accepted her.