that I did not want to marry anybody. Her Majesty then said: "I won't listen to any excuse. I have already explained everything to your mother, but much to my surprise she said it would be better to mention it to you first, on account of your having been brought up differently from the rest of the Court ladies. Had it not been for this fact I would simply have arranged everything with your mother and the matter would have been settled so far as you were concerned." I could not say anything in answer to this, so commenced to cry. I told Her Majesty that I was not like the rest of the Court ladies who pretended they did not want to marry, when all the time they were simply looking forward to getting married, if only for the change from the monotony of Court life. I promised that I would stay with her forever, and that I had no desire to go away from China again. I explained that I should not have gone away at all had it not been that my father was transferred to Paris. Her Majesty said: "Oh, well, I am very glad that you did go away as you are more useful to me than you would have been had you stayed in China all your life." After a lot more discussion Her Majesty said: "Well, I will leave you to think the matter over. If you don't like the young man I have chosen there are plenty of others," which remark did not help me very much as I could see that she meant to marry me off anyway. However, I had managed to get out of it this time, and thought I would be able to arrange matters satisfactorily should the question come up again. Nothing further was said about the matter until nearly a month later when I heard that a marriage had been arranged between this gentleman and the daughter of one of the princes. So everything ended very satisfactorily from my point of view. The twenty-sixth day of the eighth moon was the occasion of another celebration. At the time the Manchu Dynasty began, Emperor Shung Chih, who had fought very hard to gain the throne, found himself on the twenty-sixth day of the eighth moon, absolutely out of provisions of every kind and it was necessary for him and his army to live on the leaves of trees, which was the only form of food obtainable at the time. Thus the anniversary of this day, even up to the present time, is always celebrated by the Manchu people, who deny themselves all luxuries, especially at the Court. We did not eat any meat on that day, but only rice wrapped in lettuce leaves. Chopsticks were also discarded and the food was conveyed to the mouth by the hands alone. Even the Empress Dowager was no exception to this rule. This is done in order to remind the present generation of the privation suffered by their ancestors who established the Manchu Dynasty.