n this amiable manner the matter was arranged between Ling and Mian, as
they sat together in the magician's garden drinking peach-tea, which the
two attendants--not without discriminating and significant expressions
between themselves--brought to them from time to time. Here Ling made
clear the whole manner of his life from his earliest memory to the
time when he fell in dignified combat, nor did Mian withhold anything,
explaining in particular such charms and spells of the magician as she
had knowledge of, and in this graceful manner materially assisting her
lover in the many disagreeable encounters and conflicts which he was
shortly to experience.

It was with even more objectionable feelings than before that Ling now
contemplated his journey to Canton, involving as it did the separation
from one who had become as the shadow of his existence, and by whose
side he had an undoubted claim to stand. Yet the necessity of the
undertaking was no less than before, and the full possession of all his
natural powers took away his only excuse for delaying in the matter.
Without any pleasurable anticipations, therefore, he consulted the
Sacred Flat and Round Sticks, and learning that the following day would
be propitious for the journey, he arranged to set out in accordance with
the omen.

When the final moment arrived at which the invisible threads of
constantly passing emotions from one to the other must be broken, and
when Mian perceived that her lover's horse was restrained at the door by
the two attendants, who with unsuspected delicacy of feeling had taken
this opportunity of withdrawing, the noble endurance which had hitherto
upheld her melted away, and she became involved in very melancholy
and obscure meditations until she observed that Ling also was quickly
becoming affected by a similar gloom.

"Alas!" she exclaimed, "how unworthy a person I am thus to impose upon
my lord a greater burden than that which already weighs him down! Rather
ought this one to dwell upon the happiness of that day, when, after
successfully evading or overthrowing the numerous bands of assassins
which infest the road from here to Canton, and after escaping or
recovering from the many deadly pestilences which invariably reduce that
city at this season of the year, he shall triumphantly return. Assuredly
there is a highly-polished surface united to every action in life,
no matter how funereal it may at first appear. Indeed, there are many
incid