rchased
slave."

"Peace, cockatrice! the woman was well enough," exclaimed Wu Chi, with
slow resentment. "But the matter of this obstinacy touches the dignity
of my own authority, and before to-day has passed Weng shall bring up
his footsteps suddenly before a solid wall."

Accordingly, when Weng returned at his usual hour he found his father
awaiting him with curbed impatience. That Wu Chi should summon him
into his presence in the great hall was of itself an omen that the
matter was one of moment, but the profusion of lights before the
Ancestral Tablets and the various symbols arranged upon the table
showed that the occasion was to be regarded as one involving
irrevocable issues.

"Weng Cho," said his father dispassionately, from his seat at the head
of the table, "draw near, and first pledge the Ancient Ones whose
spirits hover above their Tablets in a vessel of wine."

"I am drinking affliction and move under the compact of a solemn vow,"
replied Weng fixedly, "therefore I cannot do this; nor, as signs are
given me to declare, will the forerunners of our line, who from their
high places look down deep into the mind and measure the heart with an
impartial rod, deem this an action of disrespect to their illustrious
shades."

"It is well to be a sharer of their councils," said Wu Chi, with
pointed insincerity. "But," he continued, in the same tone, "for whom
can Weng Cho of the House of Wu mourn? His father is before him in his
wonted health; in the inner chamber his mother plies an unfaltering
needle; while from the Dragon Throne the supreme Emperor still rules
the world. Haply, however, a thorn has pierced his little finger, or
does he perchance bewail the loss of a favourite bird?"

"That thorn has sunk deeply into his existence, and the memory of that
loss still dims his eyes with bitterness," replied Weng. "Bid the rain
cease to fall when the clouds are heavy."

"The comparison is ill-chosen," cried Whu Chi harshly. "Rather should
the allusion be to the evil tendency of a self-willed branch which, in
spite of the continual watering of precept and affection, maintains
its perverted course, and must henceforth either submit to be bound
down into an appointed line, or be utterly cut off so that the tree
may not suffer. Long and patiently have I marked your footsteps, Weng
Cho, and they are devious. This is not a single offence, but it is no
light one. Appointed by the Board of Ceremony, approved of by the
E