llish the Ancestral Temple and to
receive the worship of posterity."

"Alas!" replied Ling, with extravagant humiliation, "it is indeed true;
and this person is degraded beyond the common lot of those who break
images and commit thefts from sacred places. The side of the transaction
which is at present engaging our attention never occurred to this
superficial individual until now."

"Wise and incomparable one," said Mian, in no degree able to restrain
the fountains of bitter water which clouded her delicate and expressive
eyes, "in spite of this person's biting and ungracious words do not, she
makes a formal petition, doubt the deathless strength of her affection.
Cheerfully, in order to avert the matter in question, or even to save
her lover the anguish of unavailing and soul-eating remorse, would she
consign herself to a badly-constructed and slow-consuming fire or expose
her body to various undignified tortures. Happy are those even to whom
is left a little ash to be placed in a precious urn and diligently
guarded, for it, in any event, truly represents all that is left of the
once living person, whereas after an honourable and spotless existence
my illustrious but unthinking lord will be blended with a variety of
baser substances and passed from hand to hand, his immaculate organs
serving to reward murderers for their deeds and to tempt the weak and
vicious to all manner of unmentionable crimes."

So overcome was Ling by the distressing nature of the oversight he had
permitted that he could find no words with which to comfort Mian, who,
after some moments, continued:

"There are even worse visions of degradation which occur to this person.
By chance, that which was once the noble-minded Ling may be disposed of,
not to the Imperial Treasury for converting into pieces of exchange, but
to some undiscriminating worker in metals who will fashion out of his
beautiful and symmetrical stomach an elegant food-dish, so that from the
ultimate developments of the circumstance may arise the fact that his
own descendants, instead of worshipping him, use his internal organs
for this doubtful if not absolutely unclean purpose, and thereby suffer
numerous well-merited afflictions, to the end that the finally-despised
Ling and this discredited person, instead of founding a vigorous and
prolific generation, become the parents of a line of feeble-minded and
physically-depressed lepers."

"Oh, my peacock-eyed one!" exclaimed Ling,