"This is a capital idea!" Tai-yü smiled. "But I've got another proposal. As the lines just paired are not sufficient, won't it be well to pick out those who've put together the fewest distiches, and make them versify on the red plum blossom?"
"An excellent proposal!" Pao-ch'ai ventured laughing. "The three girls Hsing Chou-yen, Li Wen and Li Ch'i, failed just now to do justice to their talents; besides they are visitors; and as Ch'in Erh, P'in Erh and Yün Erh got the best of us by a good deal, it's only right that none of us should compose any more, and that that trio should only do so."
"Ch'i Erh," Li Wan thereupon retorted, "is also not a very good hand at verses, let therefore cousin Ch'in have a try!"
Pao-ch'ai had no alternative but to express her acquiescence.
"Let the three words 'red plum blossom,'" she then suggested, "be used
for rhymes; and let each person compose an heptameter stanza. Cousin
Hsing to indite on the word 'red;' your elder cousin Li on 'plum;' and
Ch'in Erh on 'blossom.'"
"If you let Pao-yü off," Li Wan interposed, "I won't have it!"
"I've got a capital theme," Hsiung-yün eagerly remarked, "so let's make him write some!"
"What theme is it?" one and all inquired.
"If we made him," Hsiang-yün resumed, "versify on: 'In search of Miao Yü to beg for red plum blossom,' won't it be full of fun?"
"That will be full of zest," the party exclaimed, upon hearing the theme propounded by her. But hardly had they given expression to their approval than they perceived Pao-yü come in, beaming with smiles and glee, and holding with both hands a branch of red plum blossom. The maids hurriedly relieved him of his burden and put the branch in the vase, and the inmates present came over in a body to feast their eyes on it.