"Umph!" the magistrate grunted, watching her keenly from beneath his drooping lids, and something told Tuen that her reply had pleased him, so now she arose to her feet, and entreated softly:
"Be not angry with Tuen. Remember you told her to make her wish known to you, and this was the one, the only desire of her heart. Everything else that she could want you have given her."
"Your request has been most strange," he replied, somewhat mollified; and noticing this difference in his tone she persisted.
"If the master is great the servant should also aspire, that he may be worthy to serve such a master. (For this was a speech she had heard her father make, and had remembered.) Is not that true, O Wise ruler of the province of Kiangsi?"
"Truly for a woman she has some wit," he told himself; and after considering a moment he said to her:
"Answer me three questions, and if your words are wise your request shall be granted."
"I will try," she replied quietly, but she grew very pale.
"Well, first, why do you wish to learn to read?" he inquired, assuming a judicial air, and Tuen felt that he was laughing at her, but that knowledge only made her the more determined to gain her point.
"That I may be wise, and therefore good, and being both of these the better able to serve the Viceroy," she answered with a low bow.
He nodded his head approvingly.