"Early this morning," Chou Jui's wife interposed, "I caught a glimpse of those crabs. Only two or three of them would weigh a catty; so in those two or three huge hampers, there must have been, I presume, seventy to eighty catties!"
"If some were intended for those above as well as for those below;" Chou Jui's wife added, "they couldn't, nevertheless, I fear, have been enough."
"How could every one have had any?" P'ing Erh observed. "Those simply with any name may have tasted a couple of them; but, as for the rest, some may have touched them with the tips of their hands, but many may even not have done as much."
"Crabs of this kind!" put in old goody Liu, "cost this year five candareens a catty; ten catties for five mace; five times five make two taels five, and three times five make fifteen; and adding what was wanted for wines and eatables, the total must have come to something over twenty taels. O-mi-to-fu! why, this heap of money is ample for us country-people to live on through a whole year!"
"I expect you have seen our lady?" P'ing Erh then asked.
"Yes, I have seen her," assented old goody Liu. "She bade us wait." As she spoke, she again looked out of the window to see what the time of the day could be. "It's getting quite late," she afterwards proceeded. "We must be going, or else we mayn't be in time to get out of the city gates; and then we'll be in a nice fix."
"Quite right," Chou Jui's wife observed. "I'll go and see what she's up to for you."
With these words, she straightway left the room. After a long absence, she returned. "Good fortune has, indeed, descended upon you, old dame!" she smiled. "Why, you've won the consideration of those two ladies!"
"What about it?" laughingly inquired P'ing Erh and the others.
"Lady Secunda," Chou Jui's wife explained with a smile, "was with our venerable lady, so I gently whispered to her: 'old goody Liu wishes to go home; it's getting late and she fears she mightn't be in time to go out of the gates!' 'It's such a long way off!' Our lady Secunda rejoined, 'and she had all the trouble and fatigue of carrying that load of things; so if it's too late, why, let her spend the night here and start on the morrow!' Now isn't this having enlisted our mistress' sympathies? But not to speak of this! Our old lady also happened to overhear what we said, and she inquired: 'who is old goody Liu?' Our lady Secunda forthwith told her all. 'I was just longing,' her venerable ladyship pursued, 'for some one well up in years to have a chat with; ask her in, and let me see her!' So isn't this coming in for consideration, when least unexpected?"