tten
everything else, even the war.

CHAPTER TWENTY--CONCLUSION

MY second year at the Palace was very much the same as the first. We
celebrated each anniversary and festival in the same way as before: the
usual audience was held each morning by Her Majesty, after which the day
was given up to enjoyment. Amongst other things Her Majesty took great
interest in her vegetable gardens, and superintended the planting of the
different seeds. When vegetables were ready for pulling, from time to
time, all the Court ladies were supplied with a kind of small pruning
fork and gathered in the crop. Her Majesty seemed to enjoy seeing us
work in the fields, and when the fit seized her she would come along and
help. In order to encourage us in this work, Her Majesty would give a
small present to the one who showed the best results so we naturally
did our best in order to please her, as much as for the reward. Another
hobby of Her Majesty's was the rearing of chickens, and a certain number
of birds were allotted to each of the Court ladies. We were supposed to
look after these ourselves and the eggs had to be taken to Her Majesty
every morning. I could not understand why it was that my chickens gave
less eggs than any of the others until one day my eunuch informed me
that he had seen one of the other eunuchs stealing the eggs from my hen
house and transferring them to another, in order to help his mistress to
head the list.

Her Majesty was very particular not to encourage untidyness or
extravagance among the Court ladies. On one occasion she told me to open
a parcel which was lying in her room. I was about to cut the string when
Her Majesty stopped me and told me to untie it. This I managed to do
after a lot of trouble, and opened the parcel. Her Majesty next made me
fold the paper neatly and place it in a drawer along with the string so
that I would know where to find it should it be wanted again. From time
to time Her Majesty would give each of us money for our own private
use and whenever we wanted to buy anything, say flowers, handkerchiefs,
shoes, ribbons, etc., these could be bought from the servant girls who
used to make them in the Palace and we would enter each item in a small
note book supplied by Her Majesty for the purpose. At the end of each
month Her Majesty examined our accounts and in case she considered that
we had been extravagant she would give us a good scolding, while on the
other hand, if we managed to sho