hort at
the test, thus to enlarge your word before your fellows?"

"And in so doing demean yourself, darken the face of Shan Tien's
present regard, and alienate all those who stand around! O most obtuse
Kai Lung!"

"I will then bare my throat," confessed Kai Lung. "The barbed thought
had assailed my mind that perchance the rings of precious jade lay
coiled around your heart. Thus and thus I spoke."

"Thus also will I speak," replied Hwa-mei, and her uplifted eyes held
Kai Lung by the inner fibre of his being. "Did I value them as I do,
and were they a single hair of my superfluous head, the whole head
were freely offered to a like result."

With these noticeable words, which plainly testified the strength of
her emotion, the maiden turned and hastened on her way, leaving Kai
Lung gazing from the shutter in a very complicated state of
disquietude.

The Story of Chang Tao, Melodious Vision and the Dragon

After Chang Tao had reached the age of manhood his grandfather took
him apart one day and spoke of a certain matter, speaking as a
philosopher whose mind has at length overflowed.

"Behold!" he said, when they were at a discreet distance aside, "your
years are now thus and thus, but there are still empty chairs where
there should be occupied cradles in your inner chamber, and the only
upraised voice heard in this spacious residence is that of your
esteemed father repeating the Analects. The prolific portion of the
tree of our illustrious House consists of its roots; its existence
onwards narrows down to a single branch which as yet has put forth no
blossoms."

"The loftiest tower rises from the ground," remarked Chang Tao
evasively, not wishing to implicate himself on either side as yet.

"Doubtless; and as an obedient son it is commendable that you should
close your ears, but as a discriminating father there is no reason why
I should not open my mouth," continued the venerable Chang in a voice
from which every sympathetic modulation was withdrawn. "It is
admittedly a meritorious resolve to devote one's existence to
explaining the meaning of a single obscure passage of one of the Odes,
but if the detachment necessary to the achievement results in a
hitherto carefully-preserved line coming to an incapable end, it would
have been more satisfactory to the dependent shades of our revered
ancestors that the one in question should have collected street
garbage rather than literary instances, or turned some