"And besides that," added Janet, "her name isn't _Carringford_!" "That doesn't always signify," remarked the captain. "It looks to me like a rather clear case if we find that the Chinese name agrees with the major's recollection of it. I'd go down to the ship to-day, but Lee Ching is on shore leave, and won't be back till to-morrow. I'll see him then, and find out whether he knows anything about this Romanized Colloquial. I rather doubt it myself. It's not much used outside of the missions, I understand." "What _is_ 'Romanized Colloquial,' anyway?" demanded Marcia. "It sounds very mysterious!" "No, it isn't a bit mysterious," answered Captain Brett. "In order to understand about it, however, you must know this fact about the Chinese language. The _written_ character is the same--_means_ the same--all over the kingdom. But it isn't _pronounced_ the same in any of the different provinces. In fact, the spoken dialects are like entirely different languages. It seems that the dialect of the Fu-kien province has been reduced to a written form by the missionaries and called Romanized Colloquial. It has been in use for a good many years, but it isn't especially recognized by official or diplomatic circles. But a good many of the Chinese boys who attend the mission-schools learn it there. It's just possible that Lee Ching may have done so, as he came from that region. We can only wait and see. If he doesn't know it, he _may_ be able to write out the Chinese equivalent in some form of English script." The next day the captain went down to the _Empress of Oran_ and returned with a beaming face and a sheet of paper written on by Lee Ching. "He knew it all right!" he announced. "Learned it as a boy in the mission-school at _Chiang-chiu_. Here's what he wrote." And he held the sheet of paper for the girls to see. "He's put the Chinese characters at one side. They have to be read from top to bottom, you know. Next to them is the Romanized Colloquial, and alongside of that the English translation. Quite a pretty piece of work that!" [Illustration] "Gracious!" cried Marcia, frowning over the queer jargon. "I can't make a thing out of it--or at least I couldn't if he hadn't put the English right alongside of the others. Oh, this must be the name!--'chok-gàk ê lâng'-'maker of melodies.' Did you _ever_ hear of such heathenish sounds? Well, now we'll see what Major Goodrich has to say to that. Father, will you send it right off to him?" "At once!" announced the captain. "I'm just about as anxious as you folks, now, to get this mystery explained." But the singular thing was that somehow the girls could not bring themselves to tell Cecily much about these latest developments. They thought it would make her feel strange and anxious to realize that there was a possibility of her being in any way related to a Chinese mandarin's daughter.