courtyards in the old-fashioned customs that make for simplicity
of heart, grace of manner, that give obedience and respect to older
people; and she has the delicate high-bred ways that our girls seem
to feel unnecessary in the hurry of these days. She takes me back to
years gone by, where everything is like a dream, and I can feel again
the chair beneath me that carried me up the mountain-side with its
shadowing of high woods, and hear the song of water falling gently
from far-off mountain brooks, and the plaintive cry of flutes unseen,
that came to welcome me to my new home.

[Illustration: Mylady20.]

With her dainty gowns, her tiny shoes, her smooth black hair, she is
a breath from another world, and my sons and daughters regard her
as if she were a stray butterfly, blown hither by some wind too strong
for her slight wings. She is as graceful as the slender willow, her
youthful charm is like the cherry-tree in bloom, and the sweet
thoughts natural to youth and the springtime of life, flow from her heart
as pure as the snow-white blossoms of the plum-tree. She does not
belong to this, our modern world; she should be bending with iris
grace above goldfish in the ponds, or straying in gardens where there
are lakes of shimmering water murmuring beneath great lotus flowers
that would speak to her of love.

We are all more than charmed, and gather to the sunshine she has
brought. As they knelt before us for our blessing, I thought what a
happy thing is youth and love. "Kings in their palaces grow old, but
youth dwells forever at contentment's side."

But I must tell thee of the marriage. Instead of the red chair of
marriage, my new daughter-in-law was brought from the house of her
uncle in that most modern thing, a motor-car. I insisted that it should
be covered with red satin, the colour of rejoicing; and great rosettes
trailed from the corners to the ground. The feasting was elaborate and
caused me much care in its preparation, as not only had been
provided the many different kinds of food for our Chinese friends, but
foreigners, who came also, were served with dishes made expressly
for them, and with foreign wines, of which they took most liberally.
The Europeans, men and women, ate and drank together with a
freedom that to me is most unseemly, and I cannot understand the
men who have no pride in their women's modesty but allow them to sit
at table with strange men close by their side. Behind the archway, we
Chine