Where is there one so autocratic in her own home as a Chinese
mother? She lives within its four walls, but there she is supreme. Her
sons obey her even when their hair is touched with silver. Did not thy
son have to ask thy leave before he would decide that he could go
with His Highness to the foreign lands? Did he not say frankly that he
must consult his mother, and was he not honoured and given
permission to come to his home to have thy blessing? Dost thou
remember when Yuan was appointed secretary to the embassy in
London, and declined the honour because his mother was old and did
not wish her only son to journey o'er the seas; he gave up willingly
and cheerfully the one great opportunity of his life rather than bring
sorrow to the one who bore him.

A similar case came to our ears but a few days since. Some priests
of a foreign mission came to my husband and wished him to
intercede, as Governor, and command the Taotai of Soochow to sell
to them a piece of land on which to erect a temple of their faith. When
the Taotai was asked why he was so persistent in his refusal to carry
out the promise of the man before him in the office, he told the
Governor that the temple where his mother worshipped was in a direct
line with the proposed new foreign house of worship. His mother
feared that a spire would be placed upon its rooftree that would
intercept the good spirits of the air from bringing directly to her family
rooftree the blessings from the temple. My husband tried to persuade
him that the superstitions of a woman long in years should not stand
in the way of a possible quarrel with men of a foreign power, but the
Taotai only shrugged his shoulders and said, "What can I do? She is
my mother. I cannot go against her expressed commands;" and-- the
temple to the foreign God will not be built.

[Illustration: Mylady16.]

But it is as foolish to talk to Wan-li as "to ask the loan of a comb from
a Buddhist nun." She will not listen; or, if she does, a smile lies in the
open lily of her face, and she bows her head in mock submission;
then instantly lifts it again with new arguments learned from foreign
books, and arguments that I in my ignorance cannot refute.

I feel that I am alone on a strange sea with this, my household; and I
am in deadly fear that she will do some shocking thing, like those
girls from the school in Foochow who, dressed in their brothers'
clothing, came to Nanking and asked to be allowed to fight o