similar form, continued:

"Behold the inevitable and unvarying birthmark of our race! So it was
with this person's father and the ones before him; so it was with his
treacherously-stolen son; so it will be to the end of all time."

Trembling beyond all power of restraint, Yang removed the mask which had
hitherto concealed his face.

"Father or race has this person none," he said, looking into Ping
Siang's features with an all-engaging hope, tempered in a measure by a
soul-benumbing dread; "nor memory or tradition of an earlier state than
when he herded goats and sought for jade in the southern mountains."

"Nevertheless," exclaimed the Mandarin, whose countenance was lightened
with an interest and a benevolent emotion which had never been seen
there before, "beyond all possibility of doubting, you are this
person's lost and greatly-desired son, stolen away many years ago by
the treacherous conduct of an unworthy woman, yet now happily and
miraculously restored to cherish his declining years and perpetuate an
honourable name and race."

"Happily!" exclaimed Yang, with fervent indications of uncontrollable
bitterness. "Oh, my illustrious sire, at whose venerated feet this
unworthy person now prostrates himself with well-merited marks of
reverence and self-abasement, has the errand upon which an ignoble son
entered--the every memory of which now causes him the acutest agony
of the lost, but which nevertheless he is pledged to Tung Fel by the
Unutterable Oath to perform--has this unnatural and eternally cursed
thing escaped your versatile mind?"

"Tung Fel!" cried Ping Siang. "Is, then, this blow also by the hand of
that malicious and vindictive person? Oh, what a cycle of events and
interchanging lines of destiny do your words disclose!"

"Who, then, is Tung Fel, my revered Father?" demanded Yang.

"It is a matter which must be made clear from the beginning," replied
Ping Siang. "At one time this person and Tung Fel were, by nature
and endowments, united in the most amiable bonds of an inseparable
friendship. Presently Tung Fel signed the preliminary contract of
a marriage with one who seemed to be endowed with every variety of
enchanting and virtuous grace, but who was, nevertheless, as the
unrolling of future events irresistibly discovered, a person of
irregular character and undignified habits. On the eve of the marriage
ceremony this person was made known to her by the undoubtedly enraptured
Tung Fel, whereupo