'Then we shall not go over the wall in a basket after all,' said Little Yi. 'I should have liked that.'
'We must write a letter at once,' said Nelly, 'and throw it into Chang's compound.' 'Yes,' said An Ching, 'but who is to write it?'
This was a puzzle. An Ching, like nearly all Chinese women, could not write at all, and Nelly could only do so in English.
'You know some characters, Little Yi,' continued An Ching. 'Suppose you try.'
Little Yi felt very much flattered. 'All right,' she said. 'Give me a piece of paper and I'll do it.'
An Ching tottered off to her room, and returned with a piece of the rough tissue paper which the Chinese use for writing upon, a brush, a piece of Indian ink, and a slate slab to mix it on, all tucked up her sleeve.
Little Yi knelt down and spread her materials on the bench, while An Ching stood ready to sit down on the letter in case Hung Li or his mother came.
Little Yi could only make a few characters, and had never written a letter, but she began boldly with a beautiful 'we.'
'Can not come,' said Nelly.
'I can't make "can,"' said Little Yi; so she wrote 'not' and as much as she could remember of 'come.'