She had expected immediate and affectionate grandmotherly greeting from a touched and grateful old lady to a young mother and wife who had come so far to visit her—and had left her baby across the world and its seas to be able to do so. She did not see Sên Ya Tin for more than two days. And when she did old Ya Tin did not come to greet her but sent for her grandson’s wife to come to her presence, inclined a head to her proudly, scanned her with calm, slow eyes and very sharp ones, gave her three small sweetmeats, and dismissed her with a thimbleful of pale, boiling tea—and then apparently forgot her for days. She had planned to go everywhere hand-in-hand with Lo, he showing her where he’d flown his first kite, spun his first top, stolen his first bird’s eggs; giving his childhood to her as he found it again for himself. It seemed to her that she scarcely saw King-lo. That was not true; but he and she were together far less than they ever had been, even when he was busiest, since their marriage. His grandmother commanded and engrossed him; his kinsmen—there were thirty-six of them here at the homestead—surrounded him, and tore him away. And when he came to her, even his consummate adroitness was not enough to hide from her that his truer being was off with his kindred—in the _k’o-tang_ with his grandmother or out in the far open with the men of his blood. Sên Ya Tin was _everything_ here—all others but her satellites and chattels. Ivy never had felt so “small” before. Even the nursery governess at Washington had had more freedom and been of far more consequence. Chinese etiquette and customs hedged her about, and she felt that they throttled and insulted her; most of all they bored her very much. On her arrival she had been taken at once to the harem quarters and, unavoidably, Sên King-lo had not. Even in her smothered rebellion she could not fail to see and think that the harem rooms and courtyards were very beautiful, but a eunuch stood or lay at each entrance! And her British gorge rose at her close proximity to Sên C’hian Fan’s three wives, who pressed about her all at once, felt her face with their hands, as if to see what it was made of, giggled and screamed at her feet, pulled down her hair with pitying squeals, and summoned a tire-woman (who was a concubine also and made no secret of it) to put it up “right.” She was not imprisoned, but she felt so. She passed in and out of the “flowery” quarters as she would, and no eunuch ever gestured or glanced to stay her. For Sên King-lo had made his request, and Sên Ya Tin had given her orders. She roamed the great domain as she chose, but when she returned the concubines whispered together apart and looked at her in a way that told plainly that they regarded her as abandoned, lacking in self-respect—if not worse. And in England she had a vote!—Or had, unless alien marriage had lost her it—while here——