e queue, it was stipulated that they should not interfere with the
style of the woman's dress, and that no Chinese should be taken to the
palace as concubines or slaves to the Emperor. We have therefore always
held ourselves aloof from the Manchus. Our men did this to protect us,
and as a result no Chinese lady has ever been received at court,
except, of course, the painting teacher of the Empress Dowager, who,
before she could enter the palace, was compelled to unbind her feet,
adopt the Manchu style of dress and take a Manchu name."

"Is not the Empress Dowager very much opposed to foot-binding? Why has
she not forbidden it?"

"She has issued edicts recommending them to give it up, but to forbid
it is beyond her power. That would be interfering with the Chinese
ladies' dress."

"Do the Manchus consider themselves superior to the Chinese?"

"It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. Have you never noticed
that in his edicts the Emperor speaks of his Manchu slaves and his
Chinese subjects?"

Among my lady friends is one whose father died when she was a child,
and she was brought up in the home of her grandfather who was himself a
viceroy. She had always been accustomed to every luxury that wealth
could buy. Clothed in the richest embroidered silks and satins,
decorated with the rarest pearls and precious stones, she had serving
women and slave girls to wait upon her, and humour her every whim. One
day when we were talking of the Boxer insurrection she told me the
following story:

"Some years ago," she said, "my steward brought me a slave girl whom he
had bought from her father on the street. She was a bright intelligent
and obedient little girl, and I soon became very fond of her. She told
me one day that her grandmother was a Christian, and that she had been
baptized and attended a Christian school. Her father, however, was an
opium-smoker, and had pawned everything he had, and finally when her
grandmother was absent had taken her and sold her to get money to buy
opium. She asked me to send a messenger to her grandmother and tell her
that she had a good home.

"I was delighted to do so for I knew the old woman would be distressed
lest the child had been sold to a life of shame, or had found a cruel
mistress. Unfortunately, however, my messenger could find no trace of
the grandmother, as the neighbours informed him that she had left
shortly after the disappearance of the child.

"As the years passed the