ord around his foot, and no fair maiden looking down at him, either.

"I wonder if she is real, or only a dream-maiden, after all," he said
to himself.

But Yun-Ying was quite real; only her mother, who knew something of
magic, had given her the power of stepping in and out of people's
dreams just as she chose.

Pei-Hang got up and went on his way, thinking of Yun-Ying all the
time.

It was still very hot, and he grew so thirsty that he went to a little
hut by the roadside, and asked an old woman who was sitting in the
doorway to give him a drink.

The old dame told her daughter to fill their best goblet with fresh
spring water, and bring it out to the stranger; and when the daughter
appeared, it was none other than Yun-Ying herself.

"Oh!" cried Pei-Hang, "I thought perhaps I should never see you again,
and I have found you almost directly."

"And what is my name?" asked the girl, laughing.

"Yun-Ying," replied Pei-Hang. "Yun-Ying, Yun-Ying," he repeated, in a
singing tone, just as he had been saying it all the time as he walked
along, as if he loved the sound of it.

Yun-Ying was dressed in white underneath, but her over-dress was
bright blue, embroidered with beautiful flowers which she had worked
herself; and she stood in the door of the hut, with a peach tree in
full bloom over her head, making such a picture of youth and
loveliness that Pei-Hang's heart seemed to jump up into his throat,
and beat there fast enough to choke him.

"Who are you? And how do you come to know Yun-Ying?" asked the old
woman peering and blinking at him, with her hand over her eyes, to
shade them from the sun.

And when she heard about the dream, and the red cord, and that
Pei-Hang wanted to marry her daughter, she did not look at all
pleased.

"If I had two daughters you might have one of them, and welcome," she
grumbled.

For Pei-Hang was not by any means a bad match. His parents were well
off, and he was their only child.

But Yun-Ying was a very pretty girl, and a mandarin of Chang-ngan was
anxious to make her his wife.

"He is four times her age, it is true," said her mother, explaining
this to Pei-Hang; "but he is very rich. All his dishes and plates are
gold, and they say his drinking-cups are gold, set with diamonds."

"He is old and wrinkled, like a little brown monkey," said Yun-Ying.
"_I_ don't want to marry him! And, besides, the Fairy of the Moon
didn't tie my foot to his."

"No, that's true enough," si