The Taoist matron, Ma, chose with alacrity several pieces and shoved them in her breast.
"The other day," Mrs. Chao went on to inquire, "I sent a servant over with five hundred cash; have you presented any offerings before the god of medicine or not?"
"I've offered them long ago for you," the Taoist matron Ma rejoined.
"O-mi-to-fu!" ejaculated Mrs. Chao with a sigh, "were I a little better off, I'd also come often and offer gifts; but though my will be boundless, my means are insufficient!"
"Don't trouble your mind on this score," suggested Ma, the Taoist matron. "By and bye, when Mr. Huan has grown up into a man and obtained some official post or other, will there be then any fear of your not being able to afford such offerings as you might like to make?"
At these words Mrs. Chao gave a smile. "Enough, enough!" she cried. "Don't again refer to such contingencies! the present is a fair criterion. For up to whom in this house can my son and I come? Pao-yü is still a mere child; but he is such that he wins people's love. Those big people may be partial to him, and love him a good deal, I've nothing to say to it; but I can't eat humble pie to this sort of mistress!"
While uttering this remark, she stretched out her two fingers.
Ma, the Taoist matron, understood the meaning she desired to convey.
"It's your lady Secunda, Lien, eh?" she forthwith asked.
Mrs. Chao was filled with trepidation. Hastily waving her hand, she got to her feet, raised the portiere, and peeped outside. Perceiving that there was no one about, she at length retraced her footsteps. "Dreadful!" she then said to the Taoist matron. "Dreadful! But speaking of this sort of mistress, I'm not so much as a human being, if she doesn't manage to shift over into her mother's home the whole of this family estate."
"Need you tell me this!" Ma, the Taoist matron, at these words, remarked with a view to ascertain what she implied. "Haven't I, forsooth, discovered it all for myself? Yet it's fortunate that you don't trouble your minds about her; for it's far better that you should let her have her own way."