while the old
woman was out of the way, and kept An Ching and Little Yi quite busy.
Nelly decided that if the Christian--for that was how she thought of the
Chinaman--could help Little Yi and herself to get away before Hung Li
returned, they had better go with him. But would Little Yi consent? When
the children were together in Peking, Little Yi gave way to Nelly in
everything, but now Nelly did not feel so sure of her. She went to bed
early, and never ceased to wonder what was going on in the next compound
until she fell asleep.

Now the next compound was built on nearly the same plan as the Kus'. The
dwelling-places were all in the centre court, and there was the same
large round entrance left in the wall, through which you could pass into
a small court at the side. This was next to the Kus' small court, and it
was there that Nelly's Christian, whose surname was Chang, had appeared
over the wall. Hung Li and Ku Nai-nai did not know that there were any
native Christians in Yung Ching, but there were, and they even had a
small room set aside for preaching and Christian worship, where an
English clergyman from Peking sometimes held services. The room was in
the compound of the native lay reader's house, quite at the other side
of the town, and Chang and his family were the only converts who did not
live close to this little meeting-house.

When Chang, chuckling to himself at the astonishment he had caused,
descended the ladder, he found his wife waiting for him at the bottom.
They both went through the round hole in the centre court and then
indoors. Chang Nai-nai was most eager to learn all that Nelly had said,
for she had only heard one-half of the talk from her post at the foot
of the ladder, and as it was she who had first heard the sound of
hymn-singing coming from their neighbours', she considered herself
entitled to know everything. When her husband had satisfied her on this
point, she demanded of him what he was going to do. Her little eyes
twinkled as she suggested that they might just as well have a reward on
the children's account as Hung Li. 'And,' she added, 'we have to live,
even if we are Christians.'

'To be sure,' said Chang, 'and are we not living pretty comfortably on
the type-cutting I get from the missionaries in Peking? I shall do my
best to help the children to get home, even if I gain nothing by it, but
if the foreign child's father offers me something afterwards I shall not
refuse it. Suppose