“Fool,” said the lady, “you are more than stupid. Can there not be many by your master’s name in all these provinces? Go and bring the boy in here at once and revive him, and I will pardon you this cruelty.”
The servant obeyed her, and the boy was brought to the lady’s room. After he revived and was quite himself again, she asked him who he was and how old; why he had left his mother and come to another province, as she could tell by his voice that he was from the north. He told her he was twelve years old; had come from his home in the north to seek his father, and then he went on and told her how his mother fainted when he left her, and of his own sad and lonely journey.
“How old is your mother?” asked the lady.
“She is thirty-six,” was his reply.
“And your father, how old is he?”
“I remember hearing my mother say that he was older than she by two years, and so he should be thirty-eight.”
“What is your father’s name?” was her next question. [[148]]
“Tu Ching Ling,” was the answer.
The room was quiet a moment, and then came the question, “How does your mother live?”
To this Ting Lang replied, “At first we were supported by my grandparents, but they are dead now; died poor, and my mother, for some time, has had to take in washing. She has only one eye, so she cannot see to do fine sewing. She is reduced almost to a beggar.”