Pao-yü saw the handkerchief she threw, and hastily snatching it, he wiped his tears. Then drawing nearer to her, he put out his hand and clasped her hand in his, and smilingly said to her: "You've completely lacerated my heart, and do you still cry? But let's go; I'll come along with you and see our venerable grandmother."
Tai-yü thrust his hand aside. "Who wants to go hand in hand with you?" she cried. "Here we grow older day after day, but we're still so full of brazen-faced effrontery that we don't even know what right means?"
But scarcely had she concluded before she heard a voice say aloud:
"They're all right!"
Pao-yü and Tai-yü were little prepared for this surprise, and they were startled out of their senses. Turning round to see who it was, they caught sight of lady Feng running in, laughing and shouting. "Our old lady," she said, "is over there, giving way to anger against heaven and earth. She would insist upon my coming to find out whether you were reconciled or not. 'There's no need for me to go and see,' I told her, 'they will before the expiry of three days, be friends again of their own accord.' Our venerable ancestor, however, called me to account, and maintained that I was lazy; so here I come! But my words have in very deed turned out true. I don't see why you two should always be wrangling! For three days you're on good terms and for two on bad. You become more and more like children. And here you are now hand in hand blubbering! But why did you again yesterday become like black-eyed fighting cocks? Don't you yet come with me to see your grandmother and make an old lady like her set her mind at ease a bit?"
While reproaching them, she clutched Tai-yü's hand and was trudging away, when Tai-yü turned her head round and called out for her servant-girls. But not one of them was in attendance.
"What do you want them for again?" lady Feng asked. "I am here to wait on you!"
Still speaking, she pulled her along on their way, with Pao-yü following in their footsteps. Then making their exit out of the garden gate, they entered dowager lady Chia's suite of rooms. "I said that it was superfluous for any one to trouble," lady Feng smiled, "as they were sure of themselves to become reconciled; but you, dear ancestor, so little believed it that you insisted upon my going to act the part of mediator. Yet when I got there, with the intention of inducing them to make it up, I found them, though one did not expect it, in each other's company, confessing their faults, and laughing and chatting. Just like a yellow eagle clutching the feet of a kite were those two hanging on to each other. So where was the necessity for any one to go?"
These words evoked laughter from every one in the room. Pao-ch'ai, however, was present at the time so Lin Tai-yü did not retort, but went and ensconced herself in a seat near her grandmother.
When Pao-yü noticed that no one had anything to say, he smilingly addressed himself to Pao-ch'ai. "On cousin Hsüeh P'an's birth-day," he remarked, "I happened again to be unwell, so not only did I not send him any presents, but I failed to go and knock my head before him. Yet cousin knows nothing about my having been ill, and it will seem to him that I had no wish to go, and that I brought forward excuses so as to avoid paying him a visit. If to-morrow you find any leisure, cousin, do therefore explain matters for me to him."
"This is too much punctiliousness!" smiled Pao-ch'ai. "Even had you insisted upon going, we wouldn't have been so arrogant as to let you put yourself to the trouble, and how much less when you were not feeling well? You two are cousins and are always to be found together the whole day; if you encourage such ideas, some estrangement will, after all, arise between you."