the parents were dead it was the duty of the sons to provide
for their unmarried sisters until such time as they married. She also
said that if Chinese ladies were to work for their living it would only
set people talking about them. However, she promised to speak with Her
Ministers about paying Miss Carl, and I felt somewhat relieved as there
seemed to be a probability of something satisfactory being arranged
after all.

The twelfth day of the second moon was the anniversary of another
interesting ceremony, viz.:--the birthday of the flowers and trees.
After the morning audience we all went into the Palace grounds, where
the eunuchs were waiting with huge rolls of red silk. These we all
commenced to cut into narrow strips about two inches wide and three feet
long. When we had cut sufficient Her Majesty took a strip of red silk
and another of yellow silk which she tied round the stem of one of
the peony trees (in China the peony is considered to be the queen of
flowers). Then all the Court ladies, eunuchs and servant girls set to
work to decorate every single tree and plant in the grounds with red
silk ribbons, in the same manner as Her Majesty had done. This took up
nearly the entire morning and it made a very pretty picture, with the
bright costumes of the Court ladies, green trees and beautiful flowers.

We then went to a theatrical performance. This represented all the
tree fairies and flower fairies celebrating their birthday. The Chinese
believe that all the trees and flowers have their own particular
fairies, the tree fairies being men and the flower fairies being women.
The costumes were very pretty and were chosen to blend with the green
trees and flowers which were on the stage. One of the costumes worn by a
lotus fairy was made of pink silk, worked so as to represent the petals
of the flower, the skirt being of green silk to represent the lotus
leaves. Whenever this fairy moved about the petals would move just
as though wafted by the breeze, like a natural flower. Several other
costumes representing different flowers were made in the same manner.
The scene was a woodland dell, surrounded with huge rocks perforated
with caves, out of which came innumerable small fairies bearing
decanters of wine. These small fairies represented the smaller flowers,
daisies, pomegranate blossoms, etc. The result can be better imagined
than described. All the fairies gathered together and drank the wine,
after which they comme