"This is indeed your venerable ladyship's good fortune!" old goody Liu smiled. "We couldn't enjoy anything of the kind, much though we may long for it."
"What good fortune!" dowager lady Chia exclaimed. "I'm a useless old thing, no more."
This remark made every one explode into laughter.
Dowager lady Chia also laughed. "I heard our lady Feng say a little while back," she added, "that you had brought a lot of squash and vegetables, and I told her to put them by at once. I had just been craving to have newly-grown melons and vegetables; but those one buys outside are not as luscious as those produced in your farms."
"This is the rustic notion," old goody Liu laughed, "to entirely subsist on fresh things! Yet, we long to have fish and meat for our fare, but we can't afford it."
"I've found a relative in you to-day," dowager lady Chia said, "so you shouldn't go empty-handed! If you don't despise this place as too mean, do stay a day or two before you start! We've also got a garden here; and this garden produces fruits too; you can taste some of them to-morrow and take a few along with you home, in order to make it look like a visit to relatives."
When lady Feng saw how delighted old lady Chia was with the prospects of the old dame's stay, she too lost no time in doing all she could to induce her to remain. "Our place here," she urged, "isn't, it's true, as spacious as your threshing-floor; but as we've got two vacant rooms, you'd better put up in them for a couple of days, and choose some of your village news and old stories and recount them to our worthy senior."
"Now you, vixen Feng," smiled dowager lady Chia, "don't raise a laugh at her expense! She's only a country woman; and will an old dame like her stand any chaff from you?"
While remonstrating with her, she bade a servant go, before attending to anything else, and pluck a few fruits. These she handed to Pan Erh to eat. But Pan Erh did not venture to touch them, conscious as he was of the presence of such a number of bystanders. So old lady Chia gave orders that a few cash should be given him, and then directed the pages to take him outside to play.
After sipping a cup of tea, old goody Liu began to relate, for the benefit of dowager lady Chia, a few of the occurrences she had seen or heard of in the country. These had the effect of putting old lady Chia in a more exuberant frame of mind. But in the midst of her narration, a servant, at lady Feng's instance, asked goody Liu to go and have her evening meal. Dowager lady Chia then picked out, as well, several kinds of eatables from her own repast, and charged some one to take them to goody Liu to feast on.