"Some time ago," lady Feng laughed, "Hsi Jen came in person and told you, worthy ancestor, and how is it you've forgotten it?"
"Yes," resumed dowager lady Chia smiling, after some reflection, "I remember now. My memory is really not of the best."
At this, everybody gave way to laughter. "How could your venerable ladyship," they said, "recollect so many matters?"
Dowager lady Chia thereupon heaved a sigh. "How I remember," she added, "the way she served me ever since her youth up; and how she waited upon Yün Erh also; how at last she was given to that prince of devils, and how she has slaved away with that imp for the last few years. She is, besides, not a slave-girl, born or bred in the place. Nor has she ever received any great benefits from our hands. When her mother died, I meant to have given her several taels for her burial; but it quite slipped from my mind."
"The other day," lady Feng remarked, "Madame Wang presented her with forty taels; so that was all right."
At these words, old lady Chia nodded assent. "Yes, never mind about that," she observed. "Yuan Yang's mother also died, as it happens, the other day; but taking into consideration that both her parents lived in the south, I didn't let her return home to observe a period of mourning. But as both these girls are now in mourning, why not allow them to live together? They'll thus be able to keep each other company. Take a few fruits, eatables, and other such things," continuing she bade a matron, "and give them to those two girls to eat."
"Would she likely wait until now?" Hu Po laughingly interposed. "Why, she joined (Hsi Jen) long ago."
In the course of this conversation, the various inmates partook of some more wine, and watched the theatricals.
But we will now turn our attention to Pao-yü. He made his way straight into the garden. The matrons saw well enough that he was returning to his rooms, but instead of following him in, they ensconced themselves near the fire in the tea-room situated by the garden-gate, and made the best of the time by drinking and playing cards with the girls in charge of the tea. Pao-yü entered the court. The lanterns burnt brightly, yet not a human voice was audible. "Have they all, forsooth, gone to sleep?" She Yüeh ventured. "Let's walk in gently, and give them a fright!"
Presently, they stepped, on tiptoe, past the mirrored partition-wall. At a glance, they discerned Hsi Jen lying on the stove-couch, face to face with some other girl. On the opposite side sat two or three old nurses nodding, half asleep. Pao-yü conjectured that both the girls were plunged in sleep, and was just about to enter, when of a sudden some one was heard to heave a sigh and to say: "How evident it is that worldly matters are very uncertain! Here you lived all alone in here, while your father and mother tarried abroad, and roamed year after year from east to west, without any fixed place of abode. I ever thought that you wouldn't have been able to be with them at their last moments; but, as it happened, (your mother) died in this place this year, and you could, after all, stand by her to the end."