l evil influences are "sifted out" and all good
luck and riches "sifted in"), bidding farewell to all her relatives.
One by one they were led to her, beginning with her parents and
brothers, and ending with the distant relatives, neighbours, and
guests. To each one she clung in despair, clutching their feet, and
vowing she could not leave them; and she did not let go her hold until
a coin, wrapped in red paper, was dropped into the sieve; then, with a
few words of comfort, the giver would move away to make room for
another, and all the time the red paper parcels increased in number.

When the farewells had nearly come to an end, the middleman urged a
speedy departure, and at last, when she still delayed, he entered the
room, lifted the weeping girl into his arms, and carried her out into
the guest-hall. Standing on the table before the ancestral tablet, she
worshipped her dead ancestors for the last time, for from henceforth
they were nothing to her, as she would bear another's name. This
performance over, the middleman again lifted her up like a child, and
placed her in the chair. The little bride was then locked in, the key
to the chair resting in the pocket of her guide. Fire-crackers were
let off, the pipers piped, and the bride, loudly wailing, was on her
way to her future home.

Her brothers followed her for a short distance. After having escorted
her for about a mile, they handed her the keys of her boxes and
cupboard, bade her a last farewell, and returned home, leaving the
middleman and his assistant to escort her all the way. Some ragged
little boys were carrying the large lanterns, on which was inscribed
her husband's name, in front of her chair; others carried red banners;
again, others were beating gongs. One carried the big red umbrella,
which only a bride or a Mandarin is allowed to have carried in front of
the chair.

It was a proud day in the young girl's life. Everywhere the people
crowded round to get a peep at her through the glass windows of her
sedan chair. And she, sitting motionless and with bent head all the
way, was conscious of the deference paid to her. All the people turned
respectfully aside for the procession to pass, and even if a Mandarin
had happened to meet her on the way he would have had to turn aside.
For once in a lifetime the simple country girl was to be honoured by
him, to whom all others had to bow, for, as he would have said, "Who
knows if the bride of to-day may