wildly beat her heart as delicately tripping footsteps approached
the Dragon Chamber, and the Princess of Feminine Propriety, attended by
her maidens, ascended the Imperial Couch and hastily dismissed them. Yet
no sweet repose awaited this favored lady. The Lady Ma could hear her
smothered sobs, her muttered exclamations--nay could even feel the
couch itself tremble as the Princess uttered the hated name of the Lady
A-Kuei, the poison of jealousy running in every vein. It was impossible
for Lady Ma to decide which was the most virulent, this, or the poison
of curiosity in the heart of the Pearl Empress. Though she loved not the
Princess she was compelled to pity such suffering. But all thought was
banished by the approach of the Yellow Emperor, prepared for repose and
unattended, in simple but divine grandeur.

It cannot indeed be supposed that a Celestial Emperor is human, yet
there was mortality in the start which his Augustness gave when the
Princess of Feminine Propriety flinging herself from the Dragon couch,
threw herself at his feet and with tears that flowed like that river
known as "The Sorrow of China," demanded to know what she had done that
another should be preferred before her; reciting in frantic haste such
imperfections of the Lady A-Kuei's appearance as she could recall (or
invent) in the haste of that agitating moment.

"That one of her eyes is larger than the other--no human being can
doubt" sobbed the lady--"and surely your Divine Majesty cannot be aware
that her hair reaches but to her waist, and that there is a brown mole
on the nape of her neck? When she sings it resembles the croak of the
crow. It is true that most of the Palace ladies are chosen for anything
but beauty, yet she is the most ill-favored. And is it this--this
bat-faced lady who is preferred to me! Would I had never been born: Yet
even your Majesty's own lips have told me I am fair!"

The Yellow Emperor supported the form of the Princess in his arms.
There are moments when even a Son of Heaven is but human. "Fair as the
rainbow," he murmured, and the Princess faintly smiled; then gathering
the resolution of the Philosopher he added manfully--"But the Lady
A-Kuei is incomparable. And the reason is--"

The Lady Ma eagerly stretched her head forward with a hand to either
ear. But the Princess of Feminine Propriety with one shriek had swooned
and in the hurry of summoning attendants and causing her to be conveyed
to her own apartmen