er. It is not necessary to be too polite to them
and if they are not nice to you, you let me know." Although I was very
happy at receiving this appointment, I knew that according to custom I
must refuse it, so I thanked Her Majesty very kindly for the honor
she had given me and said that I did not know enough to hold such an
important position and would prefer to be just an ordinary Court lady,
and that I would learn as quickly as possible to be useful to her.
She hardly let me finish what I was saying, when she laughed and said:
"Stop! don't say anything like that; you are too modest, which shows you
are very clever and not a bit conceited. I am surprised to see what a
perfect little Manchu lady you are, knowing even such small etiquette as
this, although you have spent many years outside of China." She was very
fond of making fun and liked very much to tease, and said that I could
try and if she saw that I could not do the work, she would scold me
and put someone else in my place. After all this that she had said,
I accepted the appointment and went over to her bed to see how it was
made, and I found that it was very easy work to do. As this would be
one of my duties, I watched while the bed was being fixed. First of
all, after Her Majesty had risen, the bedclothes were taken out into
the courtyard by the eunuchs and aired, then the bed, which was made of
beautifully carved wood, was brushed off with a sort of whiskbroom,
and a piece of felt placed over it. Then three thick mattresses made
of yellow brocade were placed over the felt. After this came the sheets
made of different colored soft silk, and over the whole thing was placed
a covering of plain yellow satin embroidered with gold dragons and blue
clouds. She had a great many pillows, all beautifully embroidered, which
were placed on the bed during the daytime; but had a particular one
stuffed with tea leaves on which she slept. It is said that stuffing
the pillow on which you sleep with tea leaves is good for the eyes.
In addition to all these, she had another very curiously shaped pillow
about twelve inches long in the middle of which was a hole about three
inches square. It was stuffed with dried flowers, and the idea of the
hole was that when she laid on it she could place her ear in this hole
and in this way hear any and every sound. I suppose in that way no one
could come on her unawares.

Besides this last yellow embroidered cover, there were six covers of