hat on Fun's
when he displayed the teapot, that Rose couldn't help laughing, which
pleased him much.

Two pretty cups with covers, and a fine scarlet tray completed the
set, and made one long to have a "dish of tea," even in Chinese style,
without cream or sugar.

When he had arranged them on a little table before her, Fun signified in
pantomime that they were hers, from her uncle. She returned her thanks
in the same way, whereupon he returned to his tea-chest, and, having
no other means of communication, they sat smiling and nodding at one
another in an absurd sort of way till a new idea seemed to strike
Fun. Tumbling off his seat, he waddled away as fast as his petticoats
permitted, leaving Rose hoping that he had not gone to get a roasted
rat, a stewed puppy, or any other foreign mess which civility would
oblige her to eat.

While she waited for her funny new friend, she improved her mind in a
way that would have charmed Aunt Jane. The gentlemen were talking over
all sorts of things, and she listened attentively, storing up much
of what she heard, for she had an excellent memory, and longed to
distinguish herself by being able to produce some useful information
when reproached with her ignorance.

She was just trying to impress upon her mind that Amoy was two hundred
and eighty miles from Hong Kong, when Fun came scuffling back, bearing
what she thought was a small sword, till he unfurled an immense fan, and
presented it with a string of Chinese compliments, the meaning of
which would have amused her even more than the sound, if she could have
understood it.

She had never seen such an astonishing fan, and at once became absorbed
in examining it. Of course, there was no perspective whatever, which
only gave it a peculiar charm to Rose, for in one place a lovely lady,
with blue knitting-needles in her hair, sat directly upon the spire of a
stately pagoda. In another charming view a brook appeared to flow in at
the front door of a stout gentleman's house, and out at his chimney. In
a third a zig-zag wall went up into the sky like a flash of lightning,
and a bird with two tails was apparently brooding over a fisherman whose
boat was just going aground upon the moon.

It was altogether a fascinating thing, and she would have sat wafting it
to and fro all the afternoon, to Fun's great satisfaction, if Dr. Alec's
attention had not suddenly been called to her by a breeze from the big
fan that blew his hair into his