The attendant was before the door, and she asked him very politely:
"Ten thousand happinesses! Is not this the house of Fan and Erh-lang?"
"Certainly it is, small lady."
"Could you not lead me to him?"
"Assuredly," he answered.
He showed her the way, calling from the door to his masters; but when Erh-lang, in the pale light of the paper lanterns, recognized the white face of his betrothed, he cried out in dismay: "Ghost! Ghost!"
Confident in her love, she advanced toward him piteously repeating:
"Elder brother! Elder brother! I am alive!"
But he kept recoiling in terror, and crying: "Help! Help!"
How could he fail to believe himself in the presence of a ghost, when he had witnessed the funeral, and had, that very evening, encountered the wife of Chou in mourning garments?