and
seemed anxious to hear what he was doing. She suddenly became very
angry again and asked why it was that the foreign governments offered
protection to Chinese political agitators and criminals. Why couldn't
they leave China to deal with her own subjects and mind their own
business a little more? She gave me instructions to keep a lookout for
any further news of this gentleman and report to her immediately, but I
made up my mind that in any case, I would not mention anything about him
again and so the matter gradually died away.

During one of our visits to the Sea Palace Her Majesty drew attention
to a large piece of vacant ground and said that it had formerly been the
site of the Audience Hall which had been destroyed by fire during
the Boxer trouble. Her Majesty explained that this had been purely an
accident and was not deliberately destroyed by the foreign troops. She
said that it had long been an eyesore to her as it was so ugly, and that
she had now determined to build another Audience Hall on the same site,
as the present Audience Hall was too small to accommodate the foreign
guests when they paid their respects at New Year. She therefore
commanded the Board of Works to prepare a model of the new building in
accordance with her own ideas, and submit it for her approval. Up to
that time all the buildings in the Palace Grounds were typically Chinese
but this new Audience Hall was to be more or less on the foreign plan
and up to date in every respect. This model was accordingly prepared
and submitted to Her Majesty. It was only a small wooden model but was
complete in every detail, even to the pattern of the windows and the
carving on the ceilings and panels. However, I never knew anything to
quite come up to Her Majesty's ideas, and this was no exception. She
criticised the model from every standpoint, ordering this room to be
enlarged and that room to be made smaller: this window to be moved to
another place, etc., etc. So the model went back for reconstruction.
When it was again brought for Her Majesty's inspection everybody agreed
that it was an improvement on the first one, and even Her Majesty
expressed great satisfaction. The next thing was to find a name for the
new building and after serious and mature consideration it was decided
to name it Hai Yen Tang (Sea Coast Audience Hall). Building operations
were commenced immediately and Her Majesty took great interest in the
progress of the work. It had alre