leave-taking, Lao Ting retraced his steps in an exalted frame of mind.
He had spoken to the maiden and heard her incomparable voice. He now
knew her name and the path leading to her father's house. It only
remained for him to win a position worthy of her acceptance (if the
Empire could offer such a thing), and their future happiness might be
regarded as assured.

Thus engaged, Lao Ting walked on, seeing within his head the arrival
of the bridal chair, partaking of the well-spread wedding feast,
hearing the felicitations of the guests: "A hundred sons and a
thousand grandsons!" Something white fluttering by the wayside
recalled him to the realities of the day. He had reached the buildings
of the outer city, and on a wall before him a printed notice was
displayed.

It has already been set forth that the few solitary cash which from
time to time fell into the student's sleeve were barely sufficient to
feed his thirsty brush with ink. For the material on which to write
and to practise the graceful curves essential to a style he was driven
to various unworthy expedients. It had thus become his habit to lurk
in the footsteps of those who affix public proclamations in the ways
and spaces of the city, and when they had passed on to remove, as
unostentatiously as possible, the more suitable pronouncements and to
carry them to his own abode. For this reason he regarded every notice
from a varying angle, being concerned less with what appeared upon it
than with what did not appear. Accordingly he now crossed the way and
endeavoured to secure the sheet that had attracted his attention. In
this he was unsuccessful, however, for he could only detach a meagre
fragment.

When Lao Ting reached his uninviting room the last pretence of
daylight had faded. He recognized that he had lost many precious
moments in Hoa-mi's engaging society, and although he would willingly
have lost many more, there was now a deeper pang in his regret that he
could not continue his study further into the night. As this was
impossible, he drew his scanty night coverings around him and composed
his mind for sleep, conscious of an increasing rigour in the air; for,
as he found when the morning came, one who wished him well, passing in
his absence, had written a lucky saying on a stone and cast it through
the paper window.

When Lao Ting awoke it was still night, but the room was no longer
entirely devoid of light. As his custom was, an open page lay on the