"Are you going to stay to-day," dowager lady Chia then asked, "or going back home?"
Nurse Chou smiled. "Your venerable ladyship has not seen what an amount of clothes we've brought," she replied. "We mean, of course, to stay a couple of days."
"Is cousin Pao-yü not at home?" inquired Hsiang-yün."
"There she's again! She doesn't think of others," remarked Pao-ch'ai smiling significantly. "She only thinks of her cousin Pao-yü. They're both so fond of larks! This proves that she hasn't yet got rid of that spirit of mischief."
"You're all now grown up," observed old lady Chia; "and you shouldn't allude to infant names."
But while she was chiding them, they noticed Pao-yü arrive.
"Cousin Yün, have you come?" he smiled. "How is it that you wouldn't come the other day when some one was despatched to fetch you?"
"It's only a few minutes," Madame Wang said, "since our venerable senior called that one to task, and now here he comes and refers to names and surnames!"
"Your cousin Pao," ventured Lin Tai-yü, "has something good, which he has been waiting to give you."
"What good thing is it?" asked Hsiang-yün.