Little Yi felt very much flattered. 'All right,' she said. 'Give me a piece of paper and I'll do it.' An Ching tottered off to her room, and returned with a piece of the rough tissue paper which the Chinese use for writing upon, a brush, a piece of Indian ink, and a slate slab to mix it on, all tucked up her sleeve. Little Yi knelt down and spread her materials on the bench, while An Ching stood ready to sit down on the letter in case Hung Li or his mother came. Little Yi could only make a few characters, and had never written a letter, but she began boldly with a beautiful 'we.' 'Can not come,' said Nelly. 'I can't make "can,"' said Little Yi; so she wrote 'not' and as much as she could remember of 'come.' 'Hung Li is here,' dictated Nelly. 'How can you expect me to know how to make "Hung" and "Li"?' objected the scribe. An Ching said that the character for 'Hung' was the same as that used for the word 'red,' and she thought she could make the 'Li.' She took the pen and did it, very badly and quite crooked. Then Little Yi found she was not able to make 'is.' She missed that and put 'here.' The letter then read, 'We not come. Hung Li here.' 'That's enough,' said An Ching. 'Fold it up and put any character which means Chang on the outside.' Little Yi did so, and they screwed the bit of paper up with a pebble inside and threw it over the wall. The preparations for departure were very few and simple. They had no luggage. An Ching had a small bundle with some extra clothing, comb, etc., and a box was fastened on behind the cart with cups, a tea-pot, a few cooking utensils, and some charcoal for cooking their food on the way. Nelly could hardly believe that they were to start. They had only been a few months in Yung Ching, but it seemed like years. Ku Nai-nai was unusually pleasant at the last. She told Little Yi that she should miss her, and said a few kind words to Nelly. Just before sunset the party started. An Ching and the children were inside the cart, with Hung Li as driver, sitting on the shafts. Hung Li had forgotten to pull down the curtain in front of the cart, and just as they turned out of the compound into the street they came face to face with Chang. Nelly and Little Yi both started and bent forward to greet him, but An Ching held them back and whispered, 'Hush!' Chang, after making sure that Hung Li was not looking, quickly put his head forward and asked under his breath, 'To Peking?' The children nodded vigorously, but An Ching said, in a low voice, 'I don't know.'