"She's in the inner rooms," answered his grandmother.
Pao-yü stepped in. He caught sight of a waiting-maid, standing below, blowing into an iron, and two servant-girls seated on the stove-couch making a chalk line. Tai-yü with stooping head was cutting out something or other with a pair of scissors she held in her hand.
Pao-yü advanced further in. "O! what's this that you are up to!" he smiled. "You have just had your rice and do you bob your head down in this way! Why, in a short while you'll be having a headache again!"
Tai-yü, however, did not heed him in the least, but busied herself cutting out what she had to do.
"The corner of that piece of satin is not yet right," a servant-girl put in. "You had better iron it again!"
Tai-yü threw down the scissors. "Why worry yourself about it?" she said; "it will get quite right after a time."
But while Pao-yü was listening to what was being said, and was inwardly feeling in low spirits, he became aware that Pao-ch'ai, T'an Ch'un and the other girls had also arrived. After a short chat with dowager lady Chia, Pao-ch'ai likewise entered the apartment to find out what her cousin Lin was up to. The moment she espied Lin Tai-yü engaged in cutting out something: "You have," she cried, "attained more skill than ever; for there you can even cut out clothes!"
"This too," laughed Tai-yü sarcastically, "is a mere falsehood, to hoodwink people with, nothing more."
"I'll tell you a joke," replied Pao-ch'ai smiling, "when I just now said that I did not know anything about that medicine, cousin Pao-yü felt displeased." "Who cares!" shouted Lin Tai-yü. "He'll get all right shortly."
"Our worthy grandmother wishes to play at dominoes," Pao-yü thereupon interposed directing his remarks to Pao-ch'ai; "and there's no one there at present to have a game with her; so you'd better go and play with her."