hin his women's
courtyard are as separate as two pathways which never meet.

The foreign woman comes and sits upon the edge of her chair in great
discomfort, vainly searching for a subject upon which we may have a
common bond. I sit upon the edge of the chair from necessity, as
these chairs are far too high for me, and my tiny feet hang helplessly
in the air. Although the chairs are not so high or so straight and stiff
as are our seats of honour, they have no footstools, and no small
tables on which to lean the arm. Thou wouldst laugh at our poor feeble
efforts to be agreeable one to the other. Our conversation is as foolish
and as useless as would be the using of a paper lantern for the
rice-mill. With all desire to be courteous and to put her at her ease, I
ask about her children, the health of her honourable mother, and the
state of her household. I do not ask her age, as I have learned that,
contrary to our usage, it is a question not considered quite
auspicious, and often causes the flush of great embarrassment to rise
to the cheek of a guest. Often she answers me in "pidgin" English, a
kind of baby-talk that is used when addressing servants. These
foreign women have rarely seen a Chinese lady, and they are
surprised that I speak English; often I have been obliged to explain
that when I found that my husband's office brought him close to
foreigners, and that my sons and daughters were learning the new
education in which it is necessary to know other than their mother
tongue, I would not be left behind within closed doors, so I too learned
of English and of French enough to read and speak. I am to them a
curiosity. It has not been correct in former times to know a Chinese
lady socially; and to these ladies, with their society, their calls, their
dinners, and their games of cards, we within the courtyards are
people from another world. They think that Chinese women are and
always have been the closely prisoned slaves of their husbands, idle
and ignorant and soulless, with no thoughts above their petty
household cares and the strange heathen gods they worship.

Of course, these foreign women do not say these things in words, but
their looks are most expressive, and I understand. I serve them tea
and cake, of which they take most sparingly, and when the proper
time has come they rise, trying not to look relief that their martyrdom
is over. I conduct them to the doorway, or, if the woman is the wife of
a great officia