“And for fifty years has she beaten you,” Li Faa giggled. “How my father used to laugh at Yap Ten Shin! Like you, Yap Ten Shin had been born in China, and had brought the China customs with him. His old father was for ever beating him with a stick. He loved his father. But his father beat him harder than ever when he became a missionary _paké_. Every time he went to the missionary services, his father beat him. And every time the missionary heard of it he was harsh in his language to Yap Ten Shin for allowing his father to beat him. And my father laughed and laughed, for my father was a very liberal _paké_, who had changed his customs quicker than most foreigners. And all the trouble was because Yap Ten Shin had a loving heart. He loved his honourable father. He loved the God of Love of the Christian missionary. But in the end, in me, he found the greatest love of all, which is the love of woman. In me he forgot his love for his father and his love for the loving Christ. “And he offered my father six hundred gold, for me—the price was small because my feet were not small. But I was half _kanaka_. I said that I was not a slave-woman, and that I would be sold to no man. My high-school teacher was a _haole_ old maid who said love of woman was so beyond price that it must never be sold. Perhaps that is why she was an old maid. She was not beautiful. She could not give herself away. My _kanaka_ mother said it was not the _kanaka_ way to sell their daughters for a money price. They gave their daughters for love, and she would listen to reason if Yap Ten Shin provided _luaus_ in quantity and quality. My _paké_ father, as I have told you, was liberal. He asked me if I wanted Yap Ten Shin for my husband. And I said yes; and freely, of myself, I went to him. He it was who was kicked by a horse; but he was a very good husband before he was kicked by the horse. “As for you, Ah Kim, you shall always be honourable and lovable for me, and some day, when it is not necessary for you to take me by the ear, I shall marry you and come here and be with you always, and you will be the happiest _paké_ in all Hawaii; for I have had two husbands, and gone to high school, and am most wise in making a husband happy. But that will be when your mother has ceased to beat you. Mrs. Chang Lucy tells me that she beats you very hard.” “She does,” Ah Kim affirmed. “Behold! He thrust back his loose sleeves, exposing to the elbow his smooth and cherubic forearms. They were mantled with black and blue marks that advertised the weight and number of blows so shielded from his head and face. “But she has never made me cry,” Ah Kim disclaimed hastily. “Never, from the time I was a little boy, has she made me cry.” “So Mrs. Chang Lucy says,” Li Faa observed. “She says that your honourable mother often complains to her that she has never made you cry.”