in all the old land of China.
She will be scorned by those of foreign birth, and she can never
become one of us. Dost thou remember the wife of Wang, the
secretary of the embassy at London? He was most successful and
was given swift promotion until he married the English lady, whose
father was a tutor at one of the great colleges. It angered Her Majesty
and he was recalled and given the small post of secretary to the
Taotai of our city. The poor foreign wife died alone within her Chinese
home, into which no friend had entered to bid her welcome. Some say
that after many moons of solitude and loneliness she drank the strong
drink of her country to drown her sorrow. Perhaps it was a bridge on
which she crossed to a land filled with the memories of the past which
brought her solace in her time of desolation.

[Illustration: Mylady14.]

But I have wandered, Mother mine; my mind has taken me to
England, America, to Chinese men with foreign wives, and now I will
return and tell thee of thine own again, and of my son who has
returned to me. When at last the Gods gave us our breath, we asked
the many questions which came to us like a river that has broken all
its bounds. Thy son, the father of Ting-fang, was more than angry-- he
was white with wrath, and demanded what Ting-fang did here when he
should have been at school. My son said, and I admired the way he
spoke up boldly to his father, "Father, I read each day of the progress
of the Revolution, of the new China that was being formed, and I could
not stay on and study books while I might be helping here." His father
said, "Thy duty was to stay where I, thy father, put thee!" Ting-fang
answered, "Thou couldst not have sat still and studied of ancient
Greece and Rome while thy country was fighting for its life;" and then
he added, most unfilially, "I notice thou art not staying in Sezchuan,
but art here in Shanghai, in the centre of things. I am thy son; I do not
like to sit quietly by the road and watch the world pass by; I want to
help make that world, the same as thou."

His father talked long and bitterly, and the boy was saddened, and I
crept silently to him and placed my hand in his. It was all I could do,
for the moment, as it would not be seemly for me to take his part
against his father, but-- I talked to thy son, my husband, when we
were alone within our chamber.

The storm has passed. His father refused to make Ting-fang a
secretary, as he says the time is past