them for her. I told her that my father received all these
papers as they were published, so I arranged that they should be brought
along as directed by Her Majesty. Each morning during the audience I
translated into Chinese all the war news, but the telegrams began to
arrive so rapidly that it soon became quite impossible for me to write
them all out in Chinese, so I told Her Majesty that I would read and
translate them into Chinese as they arrived. This was much quicker
and interested Her Majesty so much that she insisted on my not only
translating the war news, but everything else of interest in the papers.
Especially was she interested in all news appertaining to the movements,
etc., of the crowned heads of Europe, and was very plainly astonished
when she learned that their every movement was known. She said: "Here,
at any rate, it is more private, for nobody outside the Palace ever
knows what is going on inside, not even my own people. It would be a
good thing if they did know a little more, then perhaps all these rumors
about the Palace would stop."

Of course, during our stay in the Forbidden City, Miss Carl attended
each morning to work on the portrait. We had given her a nice room,
which seemed to suit her very well, and Her Majesty had instructed me
to let her have every convenience possible to assist her, as she was
getting tired of the business and would like to see it finished quickly.
Her Majesty hardly ever went near the place herself, but when she did
go, she would be most affable and, really, one would think that it was
the greatest pleasure of her life to go and inspect the portrait.

Things went very slowly during this eleventh moon on account of the
Court being in mourning, so one day Her Majesty suggested that she
should show us round the Forbidden City. First we proceeded to the
Audience Hall. This differs somewhat from the Audience Hall of the
Summer Palace. To enter, one must mount some twenty odd steps of
white marble, with rails on either side of the steps made of the same
material. At the top of the steps a large veranda, supported by huge
pillars of wood, painted red, surrounded the building. The windows along
this verandah were of marvellously carved trellis-work, designed to
represent the character "Shou" arranged in different positions. Then we
entered the hall itself. The floor is of brick, and Her Majesty told
us that all these bricks were of solid gold and had been there for
centuries.