y hear him saying to his august aunt, as he sees her cutting off her
long finger nails, dressing herself in blue cotton garments, and
climbing into a common street cart as an ordinary servant. "Wouldn't it
have been better to have taken my advice and that of Hsu Ching-cheng
and Yuan Chang instead of having put them to death for endeavouring in
their earnestness to save the country? What about your old conservative
friends? Can they be depended upon as pillars of state?" Or some other
"I-told-you-so" language of this kind.

From their exile in Hsian decrees continued to be issued in his name,
and when affairs began to be adjusted, and the allies insisted on
setting aside forever the pretentions of the anti-foreign Prince Tuan
and his son, banishing the former to perpetual exile, our hopes ran
high that the Emperor would be restored to his throne. But to our
disappointment the framers of the Protocol contented themselves with
the clause that: "Rational intercourse shall be permitted with the
Emperor as in Western countries," and with the return of the court in
1902 he was still a prisoner.

Every one who has written about audiences with the Empress Dowager
tells how "the Emperor was seated near, though a little below her," but
they never tell why. The reason is not far to seek. The world must not
know that he was a prisoner in the palace. They must see him near the
throne, but they may not speak to him. The addresses of the ministers
were passed to her by her kneeling statesmen, and it was they who
replied. No notice was taken of the Emperor though he seemed to be in
excellent health. The Empress Dowager however still relieved him of the
burdens of the government, and continued to "teach him how to govern."

"I have seen the Emperor many times," Mrs. Headland tells me, "and have
spent many hours in his presence, and every time we were in the palace
the Emperor accompanied the Empress Dowager--not by her side but a few
steps behind her. When she sat, he always remained standing a few paces
in the rear, and never presumed to sit unless asked by her to do so. He
was a lonely person, with his delicate, well-bred features and his
simple dark robes, and in the midst of these fawning eunuchs, brilliant
court ladies, and bejewelled Empress Dowager he was an inconspicuous
figure. No minister of state touched forehead to floor as he spoke in
hushed and trembling voice to him, no obsequious eunuchs knelt when
coming into his prese