THE LAST PEEP.
YBIL had made several friends amongst Cantonese ladies and children, and some very pleasant afternoons had she spent with them. The girls, she noticed, generally wore cotton tunics and trousers. One little girl, with whom she had spent a few hours, was in mourning, so she wore white, bound with blue. Sybil could not help thinking that this was very pretty mourning, but her brother's was still prettier, for his trousers were of pale blue silk tied round the ankles, and he wore white shoes. His cue was tied with blue. And there were such very pretty gardens belonging to the houses in which they lived, with rockeries, fish-ponds, and summer-houses almost large enough to live in.
One lady, whom Sybil visited, astonished her very much, because she had an only boy, who was very pale-looking and delicate, and she called him all sorts of names, and seemed to treat him so unkindly. When Sybil had been ill herself, her mother had always treated her with such extra love and care, and she fancied that all mothers behaved like this. Then the Chinese love their boys so much, that one would therefore have thought an only boy would be so very precious. The next time that she saw the lady she had given away her child to be adopted by some one else. Mrs. Graham heard the explanation to this unnatural conduct, and gave it to Sybil. The woman really loved her boy most fondly, and would have given anything she had to have him well, but she fancied that the gods were malicious towards him, and that if she pretended to them that she did not care for the child they would let him get well again. All that conduct was to deceive the gods.
Mr. Graham had several times dined out at Chinese houses, and sometimes his wife had accompanied him, but as Cantonese ladies never dine with their husbands in public, where her doing so was likely to give any offence, even though she were invited, she never went; but many Chinese very well understand that there are quite different laws for Europeans than there are for them, and these seemed to be glad to admit English ladies, with their husbands, to be guests at their houses.
When Mr. and Mrs. Graham went to one of these dinners, knives and forks were borrowed for them, and the other English visitors, in place of chop-sticks. A china spoon and a two-pronged fork were set before each person, and there were china wine-glasses. The table-napkins were of brown paper. Basins of fruit, from which all helped themselves as they liked, were in the middle of the table. There were a great many soups and other courses. Every now and then the host took something out of a basin with his chop-stick, and offered to put it into the mouths of his guests. Out of politeness they were bound to accept these gifts. There was not any beef, as no Chinaman eats beef. Music was played, and slaves fanned the people during dinner.
Once when Sybil visited some of her young Chinese friends, the tea was brought in to them in covered cups, and when they wanted more, tea-leaves were put into the cups and boiling water was poured upon them. She had learnt now to be able to drink tea without milk or sugar, but she could not like it.
A two months' stay at Canton brought the children to the end of four months and a half of their stay in China, and left but six weeks more before they were to return to England. It was the middle of March when the Grahams said "Good-bye" to their kind friends at the Yamen, and returned to Hong-Kong. Sybil could not bear to say this farewell, as it was the last but one, and she knew how very quickly six weeks would pass.