“Were you not in a tea-thicket?”
“I should be at my work now.”
“Then it is settled. I heard you singing. You see I am quick in my judgment as well as sagacious. Will you sing for me?”
“Sing for you?” she repeated in soft, amazed tones. “Sing for you? Why?”
“I am Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank——”
“I never sing for mandarins,” she interrupted decisively.
“What?”
“My song,” she replied in cold, careless tones, “is for the birds and tea-pickers of the Valley, but not for wolves or tigers of the Yamen.”
The mandarin became rigid; the old father’s pipe fell from his hand and the daughter, casting a fleeting glance at him continued, her voice becoming suddenly gentle and humble:
“But your coming down into our valley is as the turning of raindrops into pearls.”