Stately her person, tall and fair,
Clad in her robes embroidered and plain
Fingers as softest buds that grow,
Skin as an unguent firm and white,
Neck as the tree worm\'s breed,
Mantis front and the silk moth\'s brow,
Dimples playing in witching smile,
Beautiful eyes, so dark and bright!
Stately in person, proud and free,
Screened by her plumes, then to court comes she.
Chinese Song.

All things, even a journey from Lu Chang to Peking, must end some day, and Tuen\'s heart was leaping wildly, when after the long, tedious months upon the water she at last found herself seated in a sedan, entering the great outer wall of the capital city. Mechanically she kept repeating Szu\'s parting words: "A wise man adapts himself to circumstances as water shapes itself to the vessel that[Pg 176] contains it," but she merely did this because she must do something to keep her courage up, and not because she found any wisdom or any consolation in the proverb.

As in all places in China she saw a multitude of people about her, through which the chair bearers made their way with loud cries of Lai! Lai! (Clear the way! Clear the way!) Now they met some high mandarin, surrounded by numerous attendants, who looked haughtily out from his sedan window at the mass of humanity about him, and next would come a bride in her gilded chair, hung with garlands of flowers, while behind her followed relations, attendants and servants bearing the wedding gifts, and beating loud tom-toms, and above the sound of kettle-drum and fire-crackers resounded the wild wailing of the bride who went to the husband she had never seen. Elaborately carved portals, on[Pg 177] whose top the dragon writhed in many a curve, spanned the wide streets; stores filled with tempting wares opened before the passers-by, their tall signs gay with bright-colored letters and hung with fluttering flags; and quaint little houses, painted in blue and green and gold, almost toppled over each other in the struggle for space. The streets were the home of a mighty throng. The Mohammedan, conspicuous in his red cap, touched elbows with the strongly marked Hebrew; the money-seller, with his long string of cash, weighed cautiously the coins brought him to change; the barber deftly shaved the head of his customer who was perched on a three-legged stool, in constant danger of being jostled by a hurried pedestrian; the cook took the long pole from his shoulders, and unloading the utensils from his movable kitchen, prepared food to tempt the lookers-on; the cobbler squatted by the wayside mending shoes;[Pg 178] fortune-tellers waited for the curious; the dentist, with his necklace of shining teeth as proof of skill and customers, importuned the sufferers; the travelling blacksmith, with his implements beside him, solicited trade; jugglers performed various feats in return for the coins thrown them and delighted an ever-changing audience; and book-sellers, tinkers, druggists, musicians, razor-grinders, and pedlers of every description, cried out their wares as they went on their endless peregrinations. Wheel-barrows filled with vegetables and dromedaries bearing coal from Tartary were followed by a funeral procession, the mourners, arrayed in pure white, walking behind the gayly painted casket; and so the great population, shouting, laughin............