As she sang this her eyes sparkled, and a smile illuminated her face. Was she not going to meet her true love, her own Yung-Yung-Sho? Under those circumstances even a plain girl would have looked charming, and little A-tae appeared happy as a bird and bright as a diamond.
The girl proceeded at a brisk rate until she came to the entrance of the ravine, upon which she stopped and tormented herself with surmises. "He has fled. He was killed, for my mother did not mention him. I am devoured with affliction; I must go back," she thought, but after a while summoned courage, and walking up the pathway, found herself before the hole in the wall.
"Ahem!" said a voice, which she knew did not belong to Nan-woo.
A-tae blushed, cast down her eyes, and lifting the tribute basket placed it gently upon the ledge, but was too much agitated to speak.
"Ahem!" repeated the person inside.
"Sho," timidly whispered the girl, still looking at the ground; and ere she could raise her eyes the stone screen was pushed back, and Jerry, thrusting forth his arms, seized her, and lifting her up, imprinted a burning kiss upon her lips.
"O Sho, don't."
"You beauty, how I have longed to see you!" whispered the happy fellow. Of course his Chinese was not perfect by a long way, but he managed to make her understand, and what he could not utter with his tongue he expressed with his eyes, his only drawback being his inability to kiss her often, as the operation was not only awkward, but absolutely dangerous. After a delicious half-hour, during which he told her that she was the most beautiful woman in the world at least twenty times, she asked for Nan-woo.
"Oh, he's asleep."
"Wake him. Good-bye. I'll come again to-morrow, my lord," said she, kissing her hand in imitation of her lover; then, assuming a demure expression of countenance, awaited the awakening of the bonze.