darkly, his face lighting
up with a look of sullen anger, and, hastily locking his treasures in
their double box, he turned without making any reply and began to usher
us from the room. I repeated the request, this time using my own store
of Chinese, and drew forth a large roll of gold, but the priest waved me
aside with an angry word, which sounded like a curse, and pointed to the
door. There was nothing left but to go, and I did so, though with the
bitterest regret at leaving what I considered the most remarkable and
unique of all the curios which I have ever seen in the whole course of
my life and the one which I would have given most to possess. In the
course of the next week I haunted the neighborhood of the temple, and
several times, finding the old priest sitting beside the door, attempted
to repeat my offer, but he invariably drew back with a look of intense
hatred, and refused to listen to me. Upon my fourth or fifth attempt I
found him in company with several other Chinamen, evidently members of
his sect, who regarded me with dark looks and muttered imprecations, and
the next time I appeared in the street I found myself surrounded by
quite a mob of excited Chinamen who assailed me with fierce curses and
cries, and even made as though to offer me personal violence. After this
I felt that it would be unsafe for me to venture into that quarter of
the town again, and a few days later, finding that even in other
sections of the city I was regarded with evident suspicion and dislike,
I decided to leave the place and return to Pekin. We left Pekin early
in August, and, after stopping at several of the seaport cities,
arrived early in October in Hong Kong where we made a stay of several
weeks. It was here that I met Robert Ashton who, like myself, was
traveling in China for the purpose of collecting rare examples of
Chinese art, and who, I soon found, possessed an extraordinary knowledge
of the subject. This knowledge, which is not common among us in the
West, formed a bond of sympathy between us, especially in that country
so remote from home, where the sight of an English face and the sound of
one's native language are always so welcome. During our stay there we
saw a great deal of Mr. Ashton, and he soon became very attentive to my
daughter. She, like myself, has always felt a deep interest in Eastern
art, and seemed rather to welcome Mr. Ashton's attentions, and I was
gratified to think that in him I might find a s