"There's some congee," lady Feng promptly remarked, "prepared with duck's meat."
"I'd rather have plain things," dowager lady Chia answered.
"There's also some congee made with non-glutinous rice and powder of dates. It's been cooked for the ladies who fast."
"If there's any of this, it will do very well," old lady Chia replied.
While she spoke, orders were given to remove the remnants of the banquet, and inside as well as outside; were served every kind of recherché small dishes. One and all then partook of some of these refreshments, at their pleasure, and rinsing their mouths with tea, they afterwards parted.
On the seventeenth, they also repaired, at an early hour, to the Ning mansion to present their compliments; and remaining in attendance, while the doors of the ancestral hall were closed and the images put away, they, at length, returned to their quarters.
Invitations had been issued on this occasion to drink the new year wine at Mrs. Hsüeh's residence. But dowager lady Chia had been out on several consecutive days, and so tired out did she feel that she withdrew to her rooms, after only a short stay.
After the eighteenth, relatives and friends arrived and made their formal invitations; or else they came as guests to the banquets given. But so little was old lady Chia in a fit state to turn her mind to anything that the two ladies, Madame Hsing and lady Feng, had to attend between them to everything that cropped up. But Pao-yü as well did not go anywhere else than to Wang Tzu-t'eng's, and the excuse he gave out was that his grandmother kept him at home to dispel her ennui.
We need not, however, dilate on irrelevant details. In due course, the festival of the fifteenth of the first moon passed. But, reader, if you have any curiosity to learn any subsequent events, listen to those given in the chapter below.