young
man began to recover, and soon all signs of madness left him. He had,
however, learned a lesson which he never forgot; and as long as he
lived he never committed another offence such as the theft which had
brought such serious consequences upon himself and his family.

IX

THE TRAGEDY OF THE YIN FAMILY

In a certain district in one of the central provinces of China, there
lived a man of the name of Yin. He was possessed of considerable
property, with a great ambition to become distinguished in life. The
one desire of his heart, which seemed to master every other, was that
his family should become an aristocratic one.

So far as he knew, none of his immediate predecessors had ever been a
conspicuous scholar, or had gained any honour in the great triennial
examinations. The result was that his family was a plebeian one, from
which no mandarin had ever sprung. In what way, then, could he secure
that the fame and dignities, which had come to some of the clans in the
region in which he lived, should descend upon his home and upon his
grandsons?

He was a rich man, it is true, but he was entirely illiterate, and all
his money had been made in trade. As a lad his education had been
neglected, for his early life had been spent in the mere struggle for
existence. He had been more than successful, but the honours of the
student never could be his, and never could he act as one of the
officials of the Empire. It occurred to him, however, that though it
was impossible that he himself should ever be classed amongst the great
scholars of China, his sons and grandsons might be so honoured. In
that case the glory of their success would be reflected upon him, and
men would talk of him as the head of a family which had become
distinguished for scholarship and high dignities in the State.

He finally came to the conclusion that the most effectual way of
accomplishing this was to secure a lucky burying-ground in which he
could lay the bodies of his father and his grandfather, who had
departed this life some years before. The universal belief that in
some mysterious way the dead have the power of showering down wealth
and honours and prosperity upon the surviving members of their
families, was held most tenaciously by Mr. Yin. This belief pointed
out to him how he could emerge from the common and dreary road along
which his ancestors had travelled, into the one where royal favours and
official distinction wou