is unnecessary," said Thang-li. "Surrounded, as he is, by a
retinue of eleven female attendants, it is enough to be all-hearing.
But which of the two has impressed you in the more favourable light?"

"How can the inclinations of an obedient daughter affect the matter?"
said Fa Fei evasively. "Unless, O most indulgent, it is your amiable
intention to permit me to follow the inspiration of my own unfettered
choice?"

"Assuredly," replied the benevolent Thang-li. "Provided, of course,
that the choice referred to should by no evil mischance run in a
contrary direction to my own maturer judgment."

"Yet if such an eventuality did haply arise?" persisted Fa Fei.

"None but the irredeemably foolish spend their time in discussing the
probable sensation of being struck by a thunderbolt," said Thang-li
more coldly. "From this day forth, also, be doubly guarded in the
undeviating balance of your attitude. Restrain the swallow-like
flights of your admittedly brilliant eyes, and control the movements
of your expressive fan within the narrowest bounds of necessity. This
person's position between the two is one of exceptional delicacy and
he has by no means yet decided which to favour."

"In such a case," inquired Fa Fei, caressing his pig-tail
persuasively, "how does a wise man act, and by what manner of omens is
he influenced in his decision?"

"In such a case," replied Thang-li, "a very wise man does not act; but
maintaining an impassive countenance, he awaits the unrolling of
events until he sees what must inevitably take place. It is thus that
his reputation for wisdom is built up."

"Furthermore," said Fa Fei hopefully, "the ultimate pronouncement
rests with the guarding deities?"

"Unquestionably," agreed Thang-li. "Yet, by a venerable custom, the
esteem of the maiden's parents is the detail to which the suitors
usually apply themselves with the greatest diligence."
*

Of the two persons thus referred to by Thang-li, one, Tsin Lung, lived
beneath the sign of the Righteous Ink Brush. By hereditary right Tsin
Lung followed the profession of copying out the more difficult
Classics in minute characters upon parchments so small that an entire
library could be concealed among the folds of a garment, in this
painstaking way enabling many persons who might otherwise have failed
at the public examination, and been driven to spend an idle and
perhaps even dissolute life, to pass with honourabl