"Here you are in another stupid mood!" laughed Hsi Jen. "Can it be that you don't know that our sewing in these quarters mayn't be done by these needleworkers."
At this reply, it at once dawned upon Shih Hsiang-yün that the shoes must be intended for Pao-yü. "Since that be the case," she in consequence smiled; "I'll work them for you. There's however one thing. I'll readily attend to any of yours, but I will have nothing to do with any for other people."
"There you are again!" laughed Hsi Jen. "Who am I to venture to trouble you to make shoes for me? I'll tell you plainly, however, that they are not mine. But no matter whose they are, it is anyhow I who'll be the recipient of your favour; that is sufficient."
"To speak the truth," rejoined Shih Hsiang-yün, "you've put me to the trouble of working, I don't know how many things for you. The reason why I refuse on this occasion should be quite evident to you!"
"I can't nevertheless make it out!" answered Hsi Jen.
"I heard the other day," continued Shih Hsiang-yün, a sardonic smile on her lip, "that while the fan-case, I had worked, was being held and compared with that of some one else, it too was slashed away in a fit of high dudgeon. This reached my ears long ago, and do you still try to dupe me by asking me again now to make something more for you? Have I really become a slave to you people?
"As to what occurred the other day," hastily explained Pao-yü smiling,
"I positively had no idea that that thing was your handiwork."
"He never knew that you'd done it," Hsi Jen also laughed. "I deceived him by telling him that there had been of late some capital hands at needlework outside, who could execute any embroidery with surpassing beauty, and that I had asked them to bring a fan-case so as to try them and to see whether they could actually work well or not. He at once believed what I said. But as he produced the case and gave it to this one and that one to look at, he somehow or other, I don't know how, managed again to put some one's back up, and she cut it into two. On his return, however, he bade me hurry the men to make another; and when at length I explained to him that it had been worked by you, he felt, I can't tell you, what keen regret!"
"This is getting stranger and stranger!" said Shih Hsiang-yün. "It wasn't worth the while for Miss Lin to lose her temper about it. But as she plies the scissors so admirably, why, you might as well tell her to finish the shoes for you."
"She couldn't," replied Hsi Jen, "for besides other things our venerable lady is still in fear and trembling lest she should tire herself in any way. The doctor likewise says that she will continue to enjoy good health, so long as she is carefully looked after; so who would wish to ask her to take them in hand? Last year she managed to just get through a scented bag, after a whole year's work. But here we've already reached the middle of the present year, and she hasn't yet taken up any needle or thread!"