The tears came into Ah Wing’s eyes.
“Honorable lantern man,” said he, turning to the father of the little sick boy, “I wish no more for the peacock lantern. Keep it, I pray thee, for thy little sick boy. And honorable father”—he took his father’s hand—“kindly buy for me at the same price as the peacock lantern one of the other beautiful lanterns belonging to the honorable lantern man.”
CHILDREN OF PEACE
I
They were two young people with heads hot enough and hearts true enough to believe that the world was well lost for love, and they were Chinese.
They sat beneath the shade of a cluster of tall young pines forming a perfect bower of greenness and coolness on the slope of Strawberry hill. Their eyes were looking ocean-wards, following a ship nearing the misty horizon. Very serious were their faces and voices. That ship, sailing from west to east, carried from each a message to his and her kin—a message which humbly but firmly set forth that they were resolved to act upon their belief and to establish a home in the new country, where they would ever pray for blessings upon the heads of those who could not see as they could see, nor hear as they could hear.
“My mother will weep when she reads,” sighed the girl.
“Pau Tsu,” the young man asked, “do you repent?”
“No,” she replied, “but—”