The girl listened, but never a smile appeared on her face. "It is my mother's voice that speaks but the thoughts are not my mother's. Can I, your daughter, ever give myself to another man while my husband has gone all lonely down to the Yellow Springs?[181] I beseech you, my mother, grant your daughter's last request. In seven days' time my betrothed was to come to escort me to his home and I was to sit in the red marriage-chair and to be carried away to be his bride. I pray you, my mother, that my wedding-day may not be cancelled. When the spirit of my husband comes for me on that day I shall be ready." The girl's mother did her utmost to shake her daughter's resolution, for she loved her dearly, and feared the girl was concealing some dreadful intention in this strange request. But her words were quite without avail, and she soon left her daughter to talk matters over with her husband. It was not without some justifiable pride that they finally decided to humour her; for in China the girl who on the death of her betrothed renounces all thought of marriage with a living man and, by remaining faithful to the dead, embraces at the same instant wifehood and widowhood, brings glory and honour to her father's family and also to the family of the dead bridegroom. The emperor's representative--the head of the local civil government--will himself do homage to her steadfast virtue, and will doubtless convey to her parents some mark of imperial approval; while her native village will derive widespread fame from the fact that it had once been her home. The bridegroom's parents, in the case before us, received with appreciative gladness the announcement of the girl's fixed determination to remain faithful to their son, and they readily agreed to fall in with her wish for the formality of a marriage between the living and the dead. Preparations for the strange wedding went on apace, and though there was no merriment and very little feasting, strangers who suddenly arrived on the scene would never have guessed that the bridegroom was lying stiff and cold with never a thought for the beautiful bride that was to be his.