d undenied claims to public
support. He would overturn all that. He would start without capital,
sink immense sums, pay nobody, ruin his company, and retire in triumph.
Or he would become a successful politician, which was easier than
all, for nothing was needed in this career but strong lungs and a
cyclopaedia. Many other methods of achieving renown did he rehearse, all
of which seemed feasible.

Ching-ki-pin, too, thought she might do something to acquire wealth. She
painted beautifully, with no sign of perspective to mar her artistic
productions. She warbled like a nightingale. She understood botany
better than the great Chin-nong, who discovered in one day no less than
seventy poisonous plants, and their seventy antidotes. Could she not
give lessons to select classes of young ladies in all these several
accomplishments? She was dying to do something to help defeat the
machinations of their evil Quei-shin, the mother-in-law.

Finally, without coming to any particular conclusion, and after
interchanging eternal vows, they parted much comforted, and looking
forward to a brighter future.

XI.

Mien-yaun went to his home,--no longer the splendid mansion of his early
days, but a poor cottage, in an obscure quarter of the city. As he threw
himself upon a bench, a sharp bright thought flashed across his mind.
His brain expanded with a sudden poetic ecstasy. He seized upon a fresh
white sheet, and quickly covered it with the mute symbols of his fancy.
Another sheet, and yet another. Faster than his hand could record them,
the burning thoughts crowded upon him. No hesitation now, as in his
former efforts to effect his rhymes. Experience had taught him how to
think, and much suffering had filled his bosom with emotions that longed
to be expressed. Still he wrote on. Towards midnight he kicked off his
shoes, and wrote on, throwing the pages over his shoulder as fast as
they were finished. Morning dawned, and found him still at his task. He
continued writing with desperate haste until noon, and then flung away
his last sheet; his poem was done.

He rose, and moistened his lips with a cup of fragrant Hyson, which,
according to the great Kian-lung, who was both a poet and an emperor,
and therefore undoubted authority on all subjects, drives away all the
five causes of disquietude which come to trouble us. Then he walked up
and down his narrow apartment many times, carefully avoiding the piles
of eloquence that lay scatte