r of Fan. We are proprietors of THE PAVILION OF
THE QUICK HEDGE. I am nineteen, and no one has yet cheated me in my
business, I can draw a bow, and am not yet betrothed."

"Are you not a little mad?" asked the merchant, looking at him in
astonishment. "Why do you tell me all that? Do you wish me to act as
the go-between for your marriage? I am an honest man, and have never
cheated anybody."

Hearing her admirer's words, the girl rejoiced in her heart. She
suggested to her mother, who was sitting by her, that they should
go away; and rising to her feet, said to the merchant: "If you will
follow us, we will pay you at once."

But her eyes spoke in reality to the young man; who walked slowly
behind her, admiring the poise of her gait. In this manner they
proceeded until the two women entered their house. But the young girl
came back almost at once to draw aside the big door-curtain and to
look out at him as he passed. He went on walking to and fro, as if he
had lost his senses, and did not return to his house till evening.

From that particular day Victorious-Immortal remained so strangely
affected that she was quite unable to swallow a grain of rice, or even
to touch a cake. At last, one morning, she was too weak to rise. Her
mother ran to her bed.

"My poor child," she asked, "what is the matter with you?"

"I ache all over my body. I have pains in my head and cough a little."

Her mother at once thought of calling in a doctor; but, in the absence
of the master of the house and his servant, there was no man to go
on the errand. But an old female attendant, named Kind-Welcome, was
present and observed:

"The ancient woman Wang lives, as you know, quite close at hand. She
has helped more than a hundred children into the world. She can sew,
and she can act as go-between; but she can also feel a pulse and
diagnose an illness. Everybody calls her as soon as there is anything
the matter."

"That is true. Go and fetch her quickly."

Some few moments later the healer came and the mother began a long
explanation. But the woman interrupted her:

"I shall know all about it when I have examined the patient."

The sick girl put out a wasted hand, and the woman felt her pulse for
a long time. At last she said:

"You have pains in the head, and all your body aches. You are in
continual agony, and the earth is hateful to you."

"That is exactly the case," she answered from her bed. "Also I cough a
little."

"But what