A-tae walked home like one in a dream, and was questioned by her mother, who anxiously inquired if she had "seen a spirit," she looked so scared and pale. She had seen one, the recollection of whom would never again be absent from her mind. She was in love, had been spoken to by a being, one of the opposite sex, who neither commanded nor treated her like an inferior animal. Was it a dream? Was he not one of those genii who, assuming the appearance of gods, use their fatal beauty to destroy all whom they fall in with? What could he be? Poor little girl! She was sorely tried; so taking a few sticks of incense, she burnt them before the picture of the Kitchen god, in order if possible to get _him_ on her side. But she didn't tell her mother about Yung-Yung-Sho. Towards the evening she became very ill; and by night her anxious parents sent for a doctor, who, after writing a prescription, submitted it to them. "How much will it cost?" demanded the father. "Two hundred cash," gravely replied the man of physic. "Can't you do it a little cheaper? we are poor people." "I don't think I can. Let me see. I can leave out the dried rats' tails--they are costly--and the alligator's blood may be omitted. Well, say one hundred cash." The mother was a clever women, and didn't believe in the doctor's nostrum's, so she demanded how much the gentlemen wanted for the prescription. "Fifty cash." "Pay him and let him go, my lord," she observed to her husband, who thereupon handed over the cash, and the doctor departed. When he was out of sight the old woman nodded shrewdly towards her husband, as much as to infer, "trust me for being smart," then having prostrated herself before the picture of the Kitchen god, gravely burnt the prescription, and pouring some warm tea upon the ashes, carried the drink to her daughter, and compelled her to swallow it, saying soothingly, "You'll be all right to-morrow." "Oh, my heart, my heart," moaned the poor little girl. "Oh, it is not your heart, A-tae, it's your brain that has become oiled by the sun. You'll be all right now, as it will congeal again;" and having delivered herself of this very Chinese opinion, the old lady withdrew, leaving the poor child to combat a disease as old as the hills, and for which there has never been but one cure since the world began. Nothing but the possession of the loved one will satisfy the poor souls, who, like A-tae, suffer from this awful affliction. No doctor can cure them,--possibly the priest may,--but not the man of medicine.