"Tell me what your father said of him."
Nancy, in her excitement, struggled to pull out a piece of paper which she wore like a talisman.
"This is what my father wrote for him," she explained.
The old lady took the paper as though she had expected it. She held it close to the smoking wick by her bed and read it twice or three times.
The sun moving to the west kindles a splendid beacon for the
moon;
The moon following from the east tenderly displays the
reflection of the sun.
"Ah, my child," she said, after reading it slowly, "we should have burned incense before we dared to read this. We were wrong, wrong, to disobey these words. They are the mandate of heaven itself."
Nancy stood in a trance. From far through the house came the noise of laughter and music.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Kuei-Lien more than justified her connection with the Ferris household by the news she was able to bring. Not so long after Nancy herself, Ronald knew that Nancy's husband—he made a grimace every time he used the word—was to take a second wife. He was pleased. Any barrier between Nancy and Ming-te warmed his own hopes and, from the liberal store of gossip which Kuei-lien got from Paoling, it seemed that there were real barriers of distrust between the young couple. Nancy, he learned, had become the attendant of the old grandmother, "a terrible old woman," Kuei-lien volunteered. This was not such good news except that serfdom to the old t'ai-t'ai saved her from bondage to the rest of the family, for the old lady, declared Kuei-lien, was very jealous of those who waited upon her, kept them always in sight, always ready to obey her uncounted whims. Nancy would have few chances to see her husband. Ronald made Edward translate every phrase of Kuei-lien's voluble information, seeking what hints he could to guide his own course of action.