d
here I waited thy return. Because of my love for it and the rope of
remembrance with which it binds me, I keep it beautiful with rugs and
flowers.

It speaks to me of happiness and brings back memories of summer
days spent idling in a quite so still that we could hear the rustle of the
bamboo grasses on the hillside down below; or, still more dear, the
evenings passed close by thy side, watching the brightened into jade
each door and archway as it passed.

I long for thee, I love thee, I am thine.

Thy Wife.

3
My Dear One,
The hours of one day are as like each other as are twin blossoms
from the pear-tree. There is no news to tell thee. The mornings are
passed in the duties that come to all women who have the care of a
household, and the afternoons I am on the terrace with thy sister. But
first of all, thine August Mother must be made comfortable for her
sleep, and then the peace indeed is wonderful.

Mah-li and I take our embroidery and sit upon the terrace, where we
pass long hours watching the people in the valley below. The faint
blue smoke curls from a thousand dwellings, and we try to imagine
the lives of those who dwell beneath the rooftrees. We see the
peasants in their rice-fields; watch them dragging the rich mud from
the bottoms of the canal for fertilizing; hear the shrill whistle of the
duck man as, with long bamboo, he drives the great flock of ducks
homeward or sends them over the fields to search for insects. We see
the wedding procession far below, and can but faintly follow the great
covered chair of the bride and the train of servants carrying the
possessions to the new home. Often the wailing of the mourners in a
funeral comes to our ears, and we lean far over the balcony to watch
the coolie scatter the spirit money that will pay the dead man's way to
land of the Gods. But yesterday we saw the procession carrying the
merchant Wong to his resting-place of sycee spent upon his funeral.
Thy brothers tell me his sons made great boast that no man has been
buried with such pomp in all the province. But it only brings more
clearly the remembrance that he began this life a sampan coolie and
ended it with many millions. But his millions did not bring him
happiness. He laboured without ceasing, and then without living to
enjoy the fruit, worn out, departed, one knows not whither.

[Illustration: Mylady03.]
[Illustration: Mylady04.]

Yesterday we heard the clang-clang of a gong and saw the Taot