lainness that I will have nothing to say to her. But stupidity is a
shield sent by Providence to protect the greater part of mankind from
many evils; so perhaps she will escape."

It certainly in this case served to shield Miss King from Jasmine's
shafts. She was delighted at receiving the verses, and at once sat down
to compose a quatrain to match Jasmine's in reply. With infinite labour
she elaborated the following:

"Sung Yuh on th' eastern wall sat deep in thought,
And longed with P'e to pluck the fragrant fruit.
If all the well-known tunes be newly set,
What use to take again the half-burnt lute?"

Having copied these on a piece of silk-woven paper, she sent them to
Jasmine by her faithful attendant. On looking over the paper, Jasmine
said, smiling, "What a clever young lady your mistress must be! These
lines, though somewhat inconsequential, are incomparable."

But, though Jasmine was partly inclined to treat the matter as a joke,
she saw that there was a serious side to the affair, more especially as
the colours under which she was sailing were so undeniably false. She
knew well that for Sung Yuh should be read Miss King, and for P'e
her own name; and she determined, therefore, to put an end to the
philandering of Miss King, which, in her present state of mind, was
doubly annoying to her.

"I am deeply indebted to your young lady," she said, and then, being
determined to make a plunge into the morass of untruthfulness, for a
good end as she believed, added, "and, if I had love at my disposal, I
should possibly venture to make advances toward the feathery peach [a
nuptial emblem]; but let me confess to you that I have already taken
to myself a wife. Had I the felicity of meeting Miss King before I
committed myself in another direction, I might perhaps have been a
happier man. But, after all, if this were so, my position is no worse
than that of most other married men, for I never met one who was not
occasionally inclined to cry, like the boys at 'toss cash,' 'Hark back
and try again.'"

"This will be sad news for my lady, for she has set her heart upon you
ever since you first came to the inn; and when young misses take that
sort of fancy and lose the objects of their love, they are as bad as
children when forbidden their sugar-plums. But what's the use of talking
to you about a young lady's feelings!" said the woman, with a vexed toss
of her head; "I never knew a