e way." I asked how they could possibly
injure me in any way, as they were only servants, but she told me that
they would find some underhand way in which to get even with me, this
being their general custom. Of course I knew the eunuchs were a bad lot,
but could not see what cause they had to be against me in any way. I
knew they dare not say anything against me to Her Majesty, so I forgot
all about the matter. I found out afterwards that one of the tricks they
used to play on any of the Court ladies who offended them was to try and
prejudice Her Majesty against us. For instance, if Her Majesty told one
of the eunuchs that a certain thing should be done, instead of telling
me what Her Majesty wanted, the eunuch would go off to one of the other
ladies and tell her. In this way Her Majesty would get the impression
that I was too lazy to wait upon her myself, and of course the other
lady would get all the credit. Although Her Majesty was very kind to me,
also the Young Empress, it was very hard to get along with eunuchs,
and it was not good policy to offend them in any way. They regarded
themselves as being exclusively the servants of Her Majesty, the
Empress Dowager, and refused to take instructions from anybody else,
consequently they were often very rude to the other ladies of the Court,
not even excepting the Young Empress.

Everything proceeded as usual until the eighth moon, when the Emperor
was to sacrifice at the "Temple of the Sun." On this occasion the
Emperor wore a red robe.

About this time Mrs. Conger asked for a private audience, as she
wanted to see Her Majesty and at the same time see how the portrait was
progressing. Her Majesty replied that she would receive her and gave
orders accordingly. At this private audience Mrs. Conger brought into
the Court two of her relatives to be presented to Her Majesty, besides
Miss Campbell and a missionary lady. As it was a private audience,
the guests were conducted to Her Majesty's private Palace. They were
received in the hall which was being used as studio for this lady
artist, although Her Majesty was out of patience with the portrait
painting, and talked to us a great deal about it, yet when she saw Mrs.
Conger and the others she was extremely polite and told them that the
portrait was going to be a masterpiece. She was in an unusually good
humor that day and told me to give orders to the eunuchs to open all the
buildings and show them to her guests. Her Majesty