He looked at her in amazement, and she went on quickly:
"I am young and strong, but, alas! a useless burden to you. I have thought about it for long, and yesterday when I heard it said on the street that many strings of cash are paid for girls like me, I knew I could be the one to save you. If you can only sell me to some great mandarin, the price will be enough to enable you to go back to the home of our ancestors, there to pass your days in peace."
"Never!" her father cried vehemently. "You do not know what you are talking about. Sell you to be a slave, you in whose veins flows the blood of the unconquerable Tartars, whose people have been mandarins and rulers,—sell you to some despot master? By the memory of Confucius, never!"
"Do not answer me to-day, father," she said slowly, knowing that the pangs of hunger which would come with the morrow were stronger than love or pride or any other human feeling. "Only think it over, and remember that I must work anyway, and a woman's lot is ever hard. 'T is so ordained by the gods. Consider well before you refuse to procure comfort for all by such simple means."
Niu Tsang shook his head with stern determination, for although it is not a Chinese custom to care for the girls of the household, in the long days he and Tuen had journeyed together he had become deeply attached to his wise little daughter, and he was most unwilling to part with her. But he weighed well her words, and goaded on by cruel shameless hunger, that remembers neither blood nor conscience, he at last consented to her plan.
"The iron hand of poverty crushes the spirit of the proudest," he murmured sadly.
It so happened that on the third morning after Tuen had talked with him, the Viceroy of the province, seated in a sedan borne by eight attendants, for the number of these chair-bearers is a sign of official rank, came to the Ching-hwang-miau (City Guardian's Temple) to worship. Now in front of this temple was always a numerous gathering, composed of venders of different wares, idlers, and beggars, and among this throng stood Niu Tsang and his family. Too proud to descend to the level of a common beggar, and unable to find work, he now waited for a fitting opportunity to dispose of Tuen, since that seemed the only means left by which he could repair his fallen fortunes. As the Viceroy, alighting from his chair, entered the portal, Tuen crept closer to her father and whispered: "Offer me to him when he comes out. He is a great man, with much money, and doubtless has many slaves."
