olunteered, "I'll get some for you."

"That would be very kind of you," I answered, "but how would you
undertake to get them?"

"Oh, I would just steal a few and bring them over to you."

It is hardly necessary to assure my readers as I did him that I could
not approve of this method of obtaining paintings from the Lady Miao's
brush. However he must have told the Princess of my desire, for the
next time Mrs. Headland called at the palace the Princess entertained
her by showing her a number of paintings by the Lady Miao, together
with others from the brush of the Empress Dowager.

"And these are really the work of Her Majesty?" said Mrs. Headland with
a rising inflection.

"Yes, indeed," replied the Princess. "I watched her at work on them.
They are genuine."

It was some weeks thereafter that Mrs. Headland was again invited to
call and see the Princess, and to her surprise she was introduced to
the Lady Miao, with whom and the Princess she spent a very pleasant
social hour or two. When she was about to leave, the Princess, who is
the youngest sister of the Empress Yehonala, brought out a picture of a
cock about to catch a beetle, which she said she had asked Lady Miao to
paint, and which she begged Mrs. Headland to receive as a present from
the artist and herself.

During the conversation Mrs. Headland remarked that the Empress Dowager
must have begun her study of art many years ago.

"Yes," said Lady Miao. "We were both young when she began. Shortly
after she was taken into the palace she began the study of books, and
partly as a diversion, but largely out of her love for art, she took up
the brush. She studied the old masters as they have been reproduced by
woodcuts in books, and from the paintings that have been preserved in
the palace collection, and soon she exhibited rare talent. I was then a
young woman, my brothers were artists, my husband had passed away, and
I was ordered to appear in the palace and work with her."

"You are a Chinese, are you not, Lady Miao?"

"Yes," she replied, "and as it has not been customary for Chinese
ladies to appear at court during the present dynasty, I was allowed to
unbind my feet, comb my hair in the Manchu style, and wear the gowns of
her people."

"And did you go into the palace every day?"

"When I was young I did. Ten Thousand Years"--another method of
speaking of the Empress Dowager--"was very enthusiastic over her art
work in those days, and often we spent a