shape
an up-river course reefed close before a rising gale, until lost to
sight in the rain and gathering darkness.

The empty boats arrived in due course at Kanchow, when the letter was
faithfully delivered, and this being the last communication that would
be received from her husband prior to his return, Mrs Chin resigned
herself to many weeks of dreary loneliness.

Weeks lengthened into months, and the waiting woman began to feel
anxious as to the well-being of her lord.

The stifling, burning summer came and went, and still there was
neither sign nor tidings of the absent one.

Inquiries made of passing junks, to the crews of many of which Chin
was well-known, ever elicited the invariable reply that nothing had
been seen or heard of him.

Autumn and winter still brought no tidings, and the poor, saddened
woman yielded to the conviction that some disaster had overtaken her
husband and that she would see him no more.

Early Chinese marriages are almost invariably arranged by the parents,
the young folks, even if old enough, having no voice in the matter.
Later on, plurality of wives, though far from universal, is also quite
common and of good repute.

The lower orders generally have only one wife, not being able to
afford more, although as soon as a man commences to prosper and rise
in the social scale his first thought is to procure by contract or by
purchase an additional helpmeet, who, however, ranks far below the
_first_ or _No. 1_ wife. Similarly _No. 2_ ranks before _No. 3_, and
so on. Four or five wives is a common number in well-to-do households,
though one old friend of mine, since dead, had taken to himself
sixteen.

Husbands regard the marriage tie as binding on them chiefly with
regard to the material well-being of the family, whereas the honour of
the family rests on the wife's steadfastness in maintaining sacred the
nuptial vow, any detected laxity in this respect being visited on her
with remorseless punishment both by her libidinous husband and by the
whole of his clan. Widows seldom marry again, it being the duty and
pride of a virtuous woman to remain faithful to the memory of her dead
husband. Throughout the whole length and breadth of China memorial
arches to widows who have been faithful to their troth till death are
to be seen in almost every village.

Mrs Chin may have been, and probably was, attached to her husband with
that fanatical single-mindedness which belongs to women of the