ter the great Dowager was made the concubine of
Hsien Feng, she succeeded in arranging a marriage, as we have seen,
between her younger sister and the younger brother of her husband, the
Seventh Prince, as he was called, father of Kuang Hsu and the present
regent.

The world knows how, in order to keep the succession in her own family,
she took the son of this younger sister, when her own son the Emperor
Tung Chih died, and made him the Emperor Kuang Hsu when he was but
little more than three years of age. When the time came for him to wed,
she arranged that he should marry his cousin, Yehonala, the daughter of
her favourite brother, Duke Kuei. This Kuang Hsu was not inclined to
do, as his affections seem to have been centred on another. The great
Dowager, however, insisted upon it, and he finally made her Empress,
and to satisfy,--or shall we say appease him?--she allowed him to take
as his first concubine the lady he wanted as his wife; and it was
currently reported in court circles that when Yehonala came into his
presence he not infrequently kicked off his shoe at her, a bit of
conduct that is quite in keeping with the temper usually attributed to
Kuang Hsu during those early years. This may perhaps explain why she
stood by the great Dowager through all the troublous times of 1898 and
1900, in spite of the fact that her imperial aunt had taken her
husband's throne.

Mrs. Headland tells me that "Yehonala is not at all beautiful, though
she has a sad, gentle face. She is rather stooped, extremely thin, her
face long and sallow, and her teeth very much decayed. Gentle in
disposition, she is without self-assertion, and if at any of the
audiences we were to greet her she would return the greeting, but would
never venture a remark. At the audiences given to the ladies she was
always present, but never in the immediate vicinity of either the
Empress Dowager or the Emperor. She would sometimes come inside the
great hall where they were, but she always stood in some inconspicuous
place in the rear, with her waiting women about her, and as soon as she
could do so without attracting attention, she would withdraw into the
court or to some other room. In the summer-time we sometimes saw her
with her servants wandering aimlessly about the court. She had the
appearance of a gentle, quiet, kindly person who was always afraid of
intruding and had no place or part in anything. And now she is the
Empress Dowager! It seems a travesty