"Take the ring, and perhaps sometime it will serve you well, for none can tell what may be."
The boy bowed gravely, still apparently fascinated by her youth and beauty. Perhaps it was the admiration she read in his face, perhaps but an impulse that caused Tuen to ask abruptly:
"What is your name?"
"Chang-li," he answered, with another bow, for he had evidently become impressed with the superiority of this young girl.
"You may go," she said, with sudden dignity, waving her hand in dismissal. "I will remember it."
The boy turned reluctantly away, and as he did so, he did not place the ring upon his finger, but hid it in his bosom. And when he heard that this lovely creature was the daughter of a Viceroy who went as a present to the Emperor, he wondered at her graciousness, and carefully treasured the ring, although he was offered much money for it, and he was very poor.
And one day, many years after, when a proclamation was issued, commanding one Chang-li, who had been given a ring as a reward for rescuing a drowning man from the river, to come to court and present this ring, he had cause to be glad that he had treasured it.