t an empty-handed little boy. More
than likely they had gone the day before. If he could only find his
father! Now he crossed the little brook where the women came to rub
their clothes upon the rocks. There was the big mulberry tree where the
boys used to gather leaves for their silkworms. Another turn of the road
and he would see the village.

When K'ang-p'u passed round the corner and looked for the ruins of the
village hovels, an amazing sight met his gaze. There, rising directly
before him, was a great stone wall, like those he had seen round the
rich people's houses when his father had taken him to the city. The
great gate stood wide open, and the keeper, rushing out, exclaimed:

"Ah! the little master has come!"

Completely bewildered, the boy followed the servant through the gateway,
passed through several wide courts, and then into a garden where flowers
and strangely-twisted trees were growing.

This, then, was the house which his grandfather had promised him--the
home of his ancestors. Ah! how beautiful! how beautiful! Many men and
women servants bowed low as he passed, saluting with great respect and
crying out:

"Yes, it is really the little master! He has come back to his own!"

K'ang-p'u, seeing how well dressed the servants were, felt much ashamed
of his own ragged garments, and put up his hands to hide a torn place.
What was his amazement to find that he was no longer clad in soiled,
ragged clothes, that he was dressed in the handsomest embroidered silk.
From head to foot he was fitted out like the young Prince his father had
pointed out to him one day in the city.

Then they entered a magnificent reception-hall on the other side of the
garden. K'ang-p'u could not keep back his tears, for there stood his
father waiting to meet him.

"My boy! my boy!" cried the father, "you have come back to me. I feared
you had been stolen away for ever."

"Oh, no!" said K'ang-p'u, "you have not lost me, but I have lost the
tablet. A thief came and took it last night while I was sleeping."

"Lost the tablet! A thief! Why, no, my son, you are mistaken! There it
is, just before you."

K'ang-p'u looked, and saw standing on a handsome carved table the
very thing he had mourned as lost. As he stared in surprise he almost
expected to see the tiny figure swinging its legs over the top, and to
hear the high-pitched voice of his grandfather.

"Yes, it is really the lost tablet!" he cried joyfully. "How glad I am
it