"Of what kind of old story does 'the record of the white snake,' treat?" old lady Chia inquired.
"The story about Han Kao-tsu," replied Chia Chen, "killing a snake and then ascending the throne. The second play is, 'the Bed covered with ivory tablets.'"
"Has this been assigned the second place?" asked dowager lady Chia. "Yet never mind; for as the gods will it thus, there is no help than not to demur. But what about the third play?" she went on to inquire.
"The Nan Ko dream is the third," Chia Chen answered.
This response elicited no comment from dowager lady Chia. Chia Chen therefore withdrew downstairs, and betook himself outside to make arrangements for the offerings to the gods, for the paper money and eatables that had to be burnt, and for the theatricals about to begin. So we will leave him without any further allusion, and take up our narrative with Pao-yü.
Seating himself upstairs next to old lady Chia, he called to a servant-girl to fetch the tray of presents given to him a short while back, and putting on his own trinket of jade, he fumbled about with the things for a bit, and picking up one by one, he handed them to his grandmother to admire. But old lady Chia espied among them a unicorn, made of purplish gold, with kingfisher feathers inserted, and eagerly extending her arm, she took it up. "This object," she smiled, "seems to me to resemble very much one I've seen worn also by the young lady of some household or other of ours."
"Senior cousin, Shih Hsiang-yün," chimed in Pao-ch'ai, a smile playing on her lips, "has one, but it's a trifle smaller than this."
"Is it indeed Yün-erh who has it?" exclaimed old lady Chia.
"Now that she lives in our house," remarked Pao-yü, "how is it that even
I haven't seen anything of it?"
"Cousin Pao-ch'ai," rejoined T'an Ch'un laughingly, "has the power of observation; no matter what she sees, she remembers."