that evening, and
in the morning he forgot it.

The next evening, after tea, when Chu Ma was chattering to Mrs. Buckle's
amah, Nelly thought it would be nice to have another ride with her
father. The gate was again open, and Little Yi was standing near it.
When Nelly said that she was going to meet her father, Little Yi offered
to go with her. The two children went out, but saw nothing of Mr. Grey.
'We'll walk to the end of the road and look up Legation Street,' said
Nelly.

Little Yi was quite willing, and they trotted along, all the Chinese
staring very hard to see a little foreign girl in the streets without
even an amah to look after her. They had not far to go before they came
to the corner, but when they looked up the street they could see no one
but Chinese.

'We might walk on a little,' Nelly said. 'He is sure to come this way,
and it will be such a nice long ride back. You, Little Yi, can ride with
the ma-fu (groom). It will be fun.'

But Mr. Grey had not gone in that direction at all, and the little girls
were not likely to see him.

Of course the Chinese went on staring at the children, and a crowd soon
gathered round them. Presently some rude boys began to ask them all
sorts of questions and to laugh at them. Nelly did not like it at all.
She thought she would not wait for her father any longer, but go home.
They tried to turn back, but found Chinese all round them, and felt
quite frightened. Then a nice, clean-looking woman came up to them and
said:

'Don't mind all those people. Come through my house and return home
round the other way; I'll show you.'

Nelly and Little Yi thought the woman very kind. They went with her
through a door into her compound, and, after crossing two or three
court-yards, they came to a small set of rooms which the woman said were
hers. She asked the children to sit down, gave them some sugared
walnuts, and said she would go and ask her son to take them home.

Chinese sugared walnuts are very good, although they don't look
tempting, being of a purplish whity-brown colour. Nelly liked them
better than the chocolate creams which auntie always sent for her in the
big box of groceries Mrs. Grey had from England twice a year. When all
the walnuts were eaten, the children amused themselves by wandering
round the room and examining everything in it. It was not at all like
any room in an English house. The floor was stone, and part of it,
called a kang, was raised like a platf