d the honours that your Sovereign will bestow upon
you shall place you amongst the famous men of the State. Arise, and
take your place once more amongst the living!"

The Prime Minister was sitting with his daughter, listening to the sad
story of the years of suffering through which she had passed, when the
door was silently opened, and the figure of her long-lost husband
glided in. Both started up in fear and amazement, for they believed
that what they saw was only a restless spirit which had wandered from
the Land of Shadows and would speedily vanish again from their sight.
In this, however, they were delightfully disappointed. Kwang-Jui and
his wife were once more reunited, and for many a long year their hearts
were so full of gladness and contentment, that the sorrows which they
had endured gradually became effaced from their memories. They always
thought with the deepest gratitude of the God of the River, who for
eighteen years had kept the unconscious husband alive and had finally
restored him to his heart-broken wife.

III

THE BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER OF LIU-KUNG

In one of the central provinces of this long-lived Empire of China,
there lived in very early times a man of the name of Chan. He was a
person of a bright, active nature which made him enjoy life, and caused
him to be popular amongst his companions and a favourite with every one
who knew him. But he was also a scholar, well-versed in the literature
of his country, and he spent every moment that he could spare in the
study of the great writings of the famous men of former days.

In order that he might be interrupted as little as possible in his
pursuit of learning, he engaged a room in a famous monastery some miles
away from his own home. The only inhabitants of this monastery were a
dozen or so of Buddhist priests, who, except when they were engaged in
the daily services of the temple, lived a quiet, humdrum, lazy kind of
existence which harmonized well with the solitude and the majestic
stillness of the mountain scenery by which they were surrounded.

This monastery was indeed one of the most beautiful in China. It was
situated on the slope of a hill, looking down upon a lovely valley,
where the natural solitude was as complete as the most devoted hermit
could desire. The only means of getting to it were the narrow hill
footpaths along which the worshippers from the great city and the
scattered villages wound in and out on festal days,