ly quickly. The old woman was very
ugly and untidy, but the girl evidently gave a good deal of attention to
her toilet. She had silk trousers and a handsomely embroidered smock
over them. Her feet were very small, and just like a claw. Her hair,
which was a beautiful jet black, was dressed most elaborately with a
sort of comb behind, and flowers stuck in. Her lips were stained red and
her face was powdered. She wore long silver nail-protectors on the third
and fourth fingers of each hand, and had very large round jewelled
earrings. The boy had a greasy black cotton coat and a thick long tail
of hair.

Nelly tried her best to persuade the family to allow Little Yi and her
to go, but they would not listen to her. Then Little Yi began.

'You don't know what bad luck you will have if you keep a foreign child
all night,' she said. 'The foreigners are wonderful people. They can do
all sorts of things--take out their teeth and put them back again, their
eyes too, some of them.'

There was once at Peking a gentleman with a glass eye, and Little Yi had
heard that he was able to remove it. As for teeth, she knew quite well
that the British Minister slept with his on his wash-stand every night.

When Little Yi found that the women were not at all afraid, she said:

'If you keep us here, she (pointing to Nelly) will die, and then she
will always haunt you. Everything you eat will taste bitter and make you
ill.'

But Nelly never would allow Little Yi to romance and tell untruths. She
was crying bitterly now, but she stopped and told the woman that she was
a Christian, and that Christians do not die on purpose to haunt people
out of spite, as heathen do.

But the children found that it was useless to try to persuade or
frighten the Chinese. Nelly gave it up and asked for something to eat.

'To be sure,' said their first acquaintance; 'I have told the coolie (a
Chinese servant who does only the rough work) to bring you something.'

She had hardly finished speaking when the man arrived with two bowls,
in which was a sort of soup containing little pieces of meat and
vegetables. The children were given chopsticks with which to fish out
the meat, and were expected to take the soup from the bowl. Then they
had a piece of Chinese bread, which is like steamed dumpling, and half
an apple each. Nelly might have enjoyed the meal if there had not been
eight eyes watching her all the time, and the old woman constantly
peering at her clo