"To speak the truth," rejoined Shih Hsiang-yün, "you've put me to the trouble of working, I don't know how many things for you. The reason why I refuse on this occasion should be quite evident to you!" "I can't nevertheless make it out!" answered Hsi Jen. "I heard the other day," continued Shih Hsiang-yün, a sardonic smile on her lip, "that while the fan-case, I had worked, was being held and compared with that of some one else, it too was slashed away in a fit of high dudgeon. This reached my ears long ago, and do you still try to dupe me by asking me again now to make something more for you? Have I really become a slave to you people? "As to what occurred the other day," hastily explained Pao-yü smiling, "I positively had no idea that that thing was your handiwork." "He never knew that you'd done it," Hsi Jen also laughed. "I deceived him by telling him that there had been of late some capital hands at needlework outside, who could execute any embroidery with surpassing beauty, and that I had asked them to bring a fan-case so as to try them and to see whether they could actually work well or not. He at once believed what I said. But as he produced the case and gave it to this one and that one to look at, he somehow or other, I don't know how, managed again to put some one's back up, and she cut it into two. On his return, however, he bade me hurry the men to make another; and when at length I explained to him that it had been worked by you, he felt, I can't tell you, what keen regret!" "This is getting stranger and stranger!" said Shih Hsiang-yün. "It wasn't worth the while for Miss Lin to lose her temper about it. But as she plies the scissors so admirably, why, you might as well tell her to finish the shoes for you." "She couldn't," replied Hsi Jen, "for besides other things our venerable lady is still in fear and trembling lest she should tire herself in any way. The doctor likewise says that she will continue to enjoy good health, so long as she is carefully looked after; so who would wish to ask her to take them in hand? Last year she managed to just get through a scented bag, after a whole year's work. But here we've already reached the middle of the present year, and she hasn't yet taken up any needle or thread!" In the course of their conversation, a servant came and announced 'that the gentleman who lived in the Hsing Lung Street had come.' "Our master," he added, "bids you, Mr. Secundus, come out and greet him." As soon as Pao-yü heard this announcement, he knew that Chia Yü-ts'un must have arrived. But he felt very unhappy at heart. Hsi Jen hurried to go and bring his clothes. Pao-yü, meanwhile, put on his boots, but as he did so, he gave way to resentment. "Why there's father," he soliloquised, "to sit with him; that should be enough; and must he, on every visit he pays, insist upon seeing me!"