In spite of the exalted rank of their host, and the usual rigidity of Chinese etiquette, it was an informal meal, with much chattering on both Erica’s and Lister’s part, and a constant, amused plying them with questions on that of Sun Li. Erica, in her Chinese garments, evoked stately compliments from the Governor and his physician, though they smiled, too, at the obvious unfitness of the little red-headed, tomboy American to play a demure Chinese maiden. “Am I like your Chinese girls at home, godfather?” she demanded, eagerly, seeing their quietly exchanged glances. Sun Li spread out his hands in a regretful gesture, and bowed. “I fear me you are all American, Blossom,” he admitted. “But I have seen many Chinese maidens. It is interesting now to study the ways of the daughters of my old friend’s race. Do they all wear their hair short like their brothers, over here?” Captain Eric sat up suddenly, and stared at his daughter with a puzzled expression. “I’ve been vaguely wondering what was different,” he declared. “Ricky, what on _earth_——” “Oh, please, don’t say you don’t like it, like all the others,” Erica wailed, putting both hands consciously up to her bobbed head. “I cut it off last fall—all in a minute. I had so much hair, and it was so long and hot and hard to keep neat. So one day, without telling anyone, I cut it off. Aunt Charity almost wept over it, and the boys have teased, of course. But I’m not a bit sorry—that is, unless _you_ are, father. But if you only knew how comfortable it feels——” She stopped with a choke, and studied his face anxiously. “Well, I’m a bit taken aback,” her father confessed. “Still, the deed’s done, isn’t it, and as it’s your hair, my dear, I don’t see that I can have much to say. It looks rather—well, boyish, but I expect I’ll get used to it after a bit, and perhaps”—he looked at her again—”I may even end by approving it. It does seem a sensible idea, after all,” he concluded, unexpectedly. Erica clapped her hands in vehement applause of this sentiment, and a laugh went round the table. Altogether it was a pleasant meal, and the evening they spent afterward in Sun Li’s orange-hung cabin was equally interesting, for then the Governor, at Erica’s pleading, undertook the rôle of answerer-of-questions, and under her endless catechism talked of China and its customs, both ancient and of his own day. It seemed to the absorbed boy and girl that scarcely half an hour had slipped away when the tales were brought to a close, regretfully but firmly, by the little Chinese doctor, who decreed that his master had talked all that his physical endurance permitted of for one evening.