e winter days will come to them or if "the snow
is always sure to blot out the garden--" to-day is spring, and love is
love and youth is happy.

Thy shameless daughter,
Kwei-li.

19
My Dear Mother,
Thy gifts which came by the hand of Tuang-fang are most welcome.
We have already drunk of the sun-dried tea, and it brings to thought
the sight of the long, laden trays of the fragrant leaves as they lie in
the sun on the mountain-side. The rose wine we will use on occasions
of special rejoicing; and I thank thee again for the garments which will
bring comfort to so many in the coming days of cold. I was glad to
see Tuang-fang, and sorry to hear that he, with his brother, are going
so far away from home in search of labour. Is there not work enough
for our men in the province without going to that land of heat and
sickness?

Our people go far in their passion for labour; in search of it they cross
land and sea. They are the workers of the world, who sell their labour
for a price; and it is only strong men with great self-dependence who
are capable of taking a road that is likely never to join again those
who speak their language and worship their Gods. What is it that has
given these men this marvellous adaptability to all conditions, however
hard they may seem? They can live and work in any climate, they are
at home in the sandy wastes of our great deserts or in the swamps of
the southern countries. They bear the biting cold of northern lands as
readily as they labour under the burning sun of Singapore and Java.
The more I come out from the courtyard and see our people, the more
I admire them; I see the things that are so often lost sight of by those
of other lands who seek to study them. They are a philosophical race
and bear the most dreadful losses and calamities with wonderful
bravery. Nothing daunts them. Behold the family of Tuang-fang: they
saw their home ruined at time of flood and began again on the morrow
to build on the remaining foundations. They saw their fields burned up
by drouth, and took their winter clothing to the pawn-shop to get
money to buy seed for the coming spring. They did not complain so
long as they could get sufficient food to feed their bodies and the
coarse blue cloth with which to clothe them, and when these failed
they sent their three strong sons, the best of the family, to the rubber
plantations of the South.

[Illustration: Mylady27.]

We hear so much in the papers here of the "