gged her to think wisely, to talk frankly with her husband and his
mother, to whom she owes obedience. There should be no pride
where love is. She must think upon the winter of her days, when she
will be alone without husband and without children, eating bitter rice of
charity, though 'tis given by her people. I put her in remembrance of
that saying of the poet:

"Rudely torn may be a cotton mantle,
yet a skillful hand may join it;
Snapped may be the string where pearls are threaded,
yet the thread all swiftly knotted;
But a husband and his wife,
once parted, never more may meet."

I must not bring thee the sorrows of another. Oh, dear one, there will
never come 'twixt thee and me the least small river of distrust. I will
bear to thee no double heart, and thou wilt cherish me and love me
always.

Thy Wife.

9
My Dear One,
I cannot wait until the seventh day to write thee again, as my letter to
thee yestereve was full of sadness and longing. Now I have slept, and
troubles from a distance do not seem so grave.

Thine Honourable Mother has chided me gravely, but to my mind
unjustly, and, as thou knowest, I could not answer her words, though
they pierced me "like arrows from the strings of white-winged bows."
Poor Li-ti is in trouble again, and this time she has brought it upon
herself, yet she cannot he blamed. I as the head of the household, as
thine Honourable Mother has told me, should have protected her. I
told thee that she brought servants from her old home, and amongst
them her childhood's nurse, who, I am sure, loves Li-ti dearly; but, as
many women who have little to occupy their hands, she loves to sit in
the women's courtyard and gossip. If it had stopped within the
servants' courtyard all would have been well; but at the time of Li-ti's
dressing all the small goods she had gathered during the day were
emptied into the lap of Li-ti, who is too young to know that "as poison
that reaches the blood spreads through the body, so does the love of
gossip spread through the soul of woman." I do not know how it came
about, but comparisons were made between the households, that of
her home and that of her husband, and news was carried back to the
servants' quarters until at last our household was in a state of unrest
that stopped all work and made living quite impossible.

It seems small, but it is the retailing of little calumnies that disturbs
the harmony of kinsmen and ruins the peace of families. Finally