Pao-yü looked askance with his drowsy eyes. "If you want to go," he observed, "I'll go with you."
Tai-yü hearing this, speedily rose. "We've been here nearly the whole day," she said, "and ought to be going back."
As she spoke the two of them bade good-bye, and the waiting-maids at once presented a hood to each of them.
Pao-yü readily lowered his head slightly and told a waiting-maid to put it on. The girl promptly took the hood, made of deep red cloth, and shaking it out of its folds, she put it on Pao-yü's head.
"That will do," hastily exclaimed Pao-yü. "You stupid thing! gently a bit; is it likely you've never seen any one put one on before? let me do it myself."
"Come over here, and I'll put it on for you," suggested Tai-yü, as she stood on the edge of the couch. Pao-yü eagerly approached her, and Tai-yü carefully kept the cap, to which his hair was bound, fast down, and taking the hood she rested its edge on the circlet round his forehead. She then raised the ball of crimson velvet, which was as large as a walnut, and put it in such a way that, as it waved tremulously, it should appear outside the hood. These arrangements completed she cast a look for a while at what she had done. "That's right now," she added, "throw your wrapper over you!"
When Pao-yü caught these words, he eventually took the wrapper and threw it over his shoulders.
"None of your nurses," hurriedly interposed aunt Hsüeh, "are yet come, so you had better wait a while."
"Why should we wait for them?" observed Pao-yü. "We have the waiting-maids to escort us, and surely they should be enough."
Mrs. Hsüeh finding it difficult to set her mind at ease deputed two married women to accompany the two cousins; and after they had both expressed (to these women) their regret at having troubled them, they came straightway to dowager lady Chia's suite of apartments.