"Why, of course I did. I have just told you I would do anything for you." "Then I want you please to send these rings to my father and mother for me. They are old people and poor. They live in Soochow. I have written it down for you." She reached inside her coat and drew out a slip of paper with a few Chinese characters on it. "Your friends in Shanghai, who have lived in China for so long, will know how to send a package there. Or that Doctor Strike who came that night to the General. He is a very superior man," she added, obviously anxious to please Megan by praising him. "I knew him when I was a little girl in Soochow. He would tell you just what to do with them." She handed the rings back and for a moment her fingers rested on Megan's warm palm like cold little shells. "You have a chill," Megan exclaimed, "you mustn't go out like that. Let me order some hot tea for you." "No, no, don't order anything. I ought to have gone earlier, and I really am not cold. These spring days are sometimes a little chilly. You see, I brought my hot-water bottle." She touched the embroidered blue bag, and Megan once more smiled at the combination of ornament and utility. But as she looked up she surprised in Mah-li's eyes a wild uncovered gleam of fright. For a whole moment it fluttered before her uncontrolled and Megan stared back in dismay. "My dear child," she cried, "you are ill, you mustn't go away at all. Stay here with me. I'll arrange it somehow." "No, no," said Mah-li, "that is impossible." She ran one finger across her eyebrows to restore serenity to her face. Megan could scarcely believe she had seen that look. "I am not ill. I am tired; that is all." She got up and drew her coat together. Megan got up too and impulsively taking her hands drew her slightly resisting figure to the window. "Don't forget that I meant what I told you. I am your friend and am here to help you." Mah-li let her hands lie irresponsively in Megan's, but she turned her face toward her with what seemed for the time a vague expectancy. "And don't forget either," said Megan, emotion making her voice a little husky, "that you have another Friend who is always with you. Didn't they ever tell you these words of His at the Mission schools?--'Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.'" "Yes, I remember that," said Mah-li. "I embroidered it on a scroll once and they framed it and hung it on the wall. But it never seemed to me to be true. It was two thousand years ago He promised that and the happiness and unhappiness of the world have not changed since. No, the unhappiness is still poverty, sickness, dying and separation, the happiness is still the friends around the rice bowl, the acquiring of riches and honor, the son that is born. These things are the same. He has not really changed the world. I think He only used words of courtesy like any other man."