out what she did, and
she was allowed, as she grew up, to follow her own pursuits and to
give rein to her fancies without let or hindrance. From her earliest
childhood one of her lonely amusements had been to dress as a boy, and
so unchecked had the habit become that she gradually drifted into the
character which she had chosen to assume. She even persuaded her father
to let her go to the neighbouring boys' school. Her mother had died
before the colonel had been posted to Mienchu, and among the people of
that place, who had always seen her in boy's attire, she was regarded as
an adopted son of her father. Hyacinth was only too glad to get her out
of the way as much as possible, and so encouraged the idea of allowing
her to learn to read and write in the company of their neighbours'
urchins.

Being bright and clever, she soon gained an intellectual lead among the
boys, and her uncommon beauty, coupled with the magnetism belonging
to her sex, secured for her a popularity which almost amounted to
adoration. She was tall for her age, as are most young daughters of Han;
and her perfectly oval face, almond-shaped eyes, willow-leaf eyebrows,
small, well-shaped mouth, brilliantly white teeth, and raven-black hair,
completed a face and figure which would have been noticeable anywhere.
By the boys she was worshipped, and no undertaking was too difficult or
too troublesome if it was to give pleasure to Tsunk'ing, or the "Young
Noble," as she was called; for to have answered to the name of Jasmine
would have been to proclaim her sex at once. Even the grim old
master smiled at her through his horn spectacles as she entered the
school-house of a morning, and any graceful turn in her poetry or
scholarly diction in her prose was sure to win for her his unsparing
praise. Many an evening he invited the "young noble" to his house to
read over chapters from Confucius and the poems of Le Taipoh; and years
afterward, when he died, among his most cherished papers were found
odes signed by Tsunk'ing, in which there was a good deal about bending
willows, light, flickering bamboos, horned moons, wild geese, the sound
of a flute on a rainy day, and the pleasures of wine, in strict accord
with the models set forth in the "Aids to Poetry-making" which are
common in the land.

If it had not been for the indifference with which she was treated in
her home, the favour with which she was regarded abroad would have
been most prejudicial to Jasmine; bu