or
concubine, I feared it might not be truly delivered. I thought of
writing a letter to tell you what I felt; but I was afraid I might not
be able to make you understand. So I sent those trivial verses, that I
might be sure of your coming. I have no cause to be ashamed of an
irregularity which had no other object but the preservation of my
chastity."

With these words she vanished. Chang remained for a long while petrified
with astonishment. At last he climbed back over the wall and went home
in despair.

Several nights after this he was lying asleep near the verandah, when
some one suddenly woke him. He rose with a startled sigh and found that
Hung-niang was there, with bedclothes under her arm and a pillow in her
hand. She shook Chang, saying, "She is coming, she is coming. Why are
you asleep?" Then she arranged the bedclothes and pillow and went away.

Chang sat up and rubbed his eyes. For a long while he thought he must be
dreaming, but he assumed a respectful attitude and waited.

Suddenly Hung-niang came back, bringing her mistress with her. Ts`ui,
this time, was languid and flushed, yielding and wanton in her air, as
though her strength could scarcely support her limbs. Her former
severity had utterly disappeared.

That night was the eighth of the second decade. The crystal beams of the
sinking moon twinkled secretly across their bed. Chang, in a strange
exaltation, half-believed that a fairy had come to him, and not a child
of mortal men.

At last the temple bell sounded, dawn glimmered in the sky and
Hung-niang came back to fetch her mistress away. Ts`ui turned on her
side with a pretty cry, and followed her maid to the door.

The whole night she had not spoken a word.

Chang rose when it was half-dark, still thinking that perhaps it had
been a dream. But when it grew light, he saw her powder on his arm and
smelt her perfume in his clothes. A tear she had shed still glittered on
the mattress.

For more than ten days afterwards he did not see her again. During this
time he began to make a poem called "Meeting a Fairy," in thirty
couplets. It was not yet finished, when he chanced to meet Hung-niang in
the road. He asked her to take the poem to Ts`ui.

After this Ts`ui let him come to her, and for a month or more he crept
out at dawn and in at dusk, the two of them living together in that
western parlour of which I spoke before.

Chang often asked her what her mother thought of him. Ts`ui said, "I