Meanwhile the chair-bearers are clamouring for her dress, as another young woman is waiting for the same gown and chair, and delay may cause trouble. The bride is assisted on to the _kang_ by the women, her husband having departed to make merry with his friends, and the ragged opium smokers who carried her there leave, one wearing the crown of tinsel on his head, laughing and joking at much which they have seen and heard. From the moment that she is seated upon the _kang_, the bride becomes the centre of attraction to an insulting crowd. Her shoes are stolen, but knowing that this is likely she has provided herself with additional pairs. For hours she sits there and hears the remarks made. One will whisper that she is married to an irresponsible idiot, others will tell her that he is blind or dumb, and knowing how often the middlemen deceive, she waits with dread the moment when she will see for herself more than she was able to do on arrival. At last the room is cleared, and she has to face the final ordeal when she is left alone with a totally unknown man. Even the hours of darkness are not respected, and every youngster in the village has the right to enter the courtyard at any hour of the night, tear down the paper windows, and heap shame upon her head. Christianity and the influence of the foreigner has done much to revolutionise the wedding customs, but all this and more was endured by Ai Do, and she found herself withal the wife of a depraved and vicious man. It was indeed a deliverance when the Hwochow girls' school reopened and Ai Do was invited to teach in place of her elder sister, whose family claims had increased so as to prevent her holding the post as formerly. School was opened in a small courtyard which adjoined our own, and twenty girls entered as pupils. Ai Do had all the characteristics of a natural leader, and she easily controlled the girls and was much beloved by them, for she had a kind disposition and the hidden sorrows of her life had made her both strong and tender. I think that her life in school was a time of unmixed happiness to her, but the holidays had to be faced and contact with the man whom she could only strive not to hate. His opium smoking habits increased, and the pinch of poverty was felt in the home from which he was able to steal so cunningly every article of value which might be exchanged for money and spent on the drug. A great joy came into Ai Do's life with the birth of a little son, and she realised for the first time that matrimony was not solely a horror, since it brought so much compensation in its train. The child was publicly dedicated to God, and was its mother's joy for six brief months.