She took great pride in conducting me through the complicated structure where generations of Liangs had lived and died. Extending back from the main establishment was a series of smaller ones like it, each with its own courtyard, its main hall containing the family altar, its private chambers opening on each side. Similar chains of "homes within a home" extended east and west, at right angles to this central chain. Mother showed me the rooms she had occupied as a bride, with the chamber where Chan-King was born, when the older Madame Liang ruled affairs with a firm yet kindly hand. I felt deeply moved by all this, more than ever a part of the family. I made many small mistakes, I know, in my effort to practise the toleration, industry and courtesy exemplified in that family group, but Mother, unlike many of the over-sensitive, easily offended Chinese women of her class, was divinely patient. She never asked of me anything that she deemed unfitting for me and she showed a wise discrimination in all the small tasks she assigned. I sometimes accompanied her to the temple, or to the ancestral graves, but only as a spectator. Her religious toleration required no compromise. She wanted me to see where grandparents and great-grandparents were laid to rest. She knew I was interested and filled with respect. To Madame Springtime fell the task of caring for the family altar and keeping up the daily devotions before the sacred shrine. This young wife was in every way so typical of the old-fashioned Chinese woman, trained but not educated, disciplined but not broken, that I found her a continual source of interest. She was naturally shy and silent, but after a time we talked a little, and one day she showed me her bridal trunks of white lacquer with red and gold decorations, filled to the top with her bridal finery, exquisitely folded, and the clothes for her first child, which had been provided by her parents as a part of her wedding outfit. This latter custom of Chan-King's native province appealed to me. It was typical of the many simplicities I found among my adopted people. Those small, brilliant-coloured garments of padded silk and brocade and linen were symbols of hope, good omens for happiness and a fruitful marriage. Accustomed as I was to falsely Puritanic ideals concerning the important realities of life--marriage and birth--their frank attitude toward fundamentals, their unquestioning acceptance of the facts of existence came as a pleasant surprise to me. I liked also the curious contrast between their simple view of elemental things and the formality and rigour of their personal etiquette. It is the manner of an old and ever cultivated race, who have long since ceased building at the foundation and are now occupied with the decorations of life.