There were a large number of women about, for this Mandarin had two wives besides several daughters-in-law. We were invited to a reception-room where carpets, felts, tables, and chairs were all scarlet in colour, and here were served with delicious fragrant tea and small cakes, in which were mixed rose leaves, nuts, and sugar. All the preliminary questions required by good manners were first asked--our respective "venerable ages" and details of our various near relatives--but soon curiosity overflowed into many inquiries concerning our "honourable country," and we were helped to more tea and cakes, and begged to make ourselves at home. We, on our part, led the conversation back to matters concerned with the object of our residence in this country, and received from our hostess extravagant compliments upon our extraordinary ability and learning, the reputation of which, they said, was well known to the Mandarin. The object of my visit was then mentioned, and I was asked to see the tooth, of which, being very loose, I recommended the extraction, and was able to assure the patient that the pain would not be very great. Many of the younger women gathered around her, comforting her, and covered her eyes that she might not see the forceps; they begged her to remember that the pain would soon be over, and as soon as I could induce her to open her mouth, I removed the troublesome member. "How wonderful!" they all exclaimed. "Why, it did not hurt at all!" After such a surgical triumph, long-neglected and half-forgotten pains were remembered by the bystanders, and all the ladies on my next visit came to me with some complaint. We sought to awaken in them the sense of those far deeper ills which they so little realised, finding once more that in following the method of Christ a sense of need had been awakened: "Ye seek Me because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. I am the bread of life."