Her Majesty was very particular not to encourage untidyness or extravagance among the Court ladies. On one occasion she told me to open a parcel which was lying in her room. I was about to cut the string when Her Majesty stopped me and told me to untie it. This I managed to do after a lot of trouble, and opened the parcel. Her Majesty next made me fold the paper neatly and place it in a drawer along with the string so that I would know where to find it should it be wanted again. From time to time Her Majesty would give each of us money for our own private use and whenever we wanted to buy anything, say flowers, handkerchiefs, shoes, ribbons, etc., these could be bought from the servant girls who used to make them in the Palace and we would enter each item in a small note book supplied by Her Majesty for the purpose. At the end of each month Her Majesty examined our accounts and in case she considered that we had been extravagant she would give us a good scolding, while on the other hand, if we managed to show a good balance she would compliment us on our good management. Thus under Her Majesty's tuition we learned to be careful and tidy against such time as we might be called upon to look after homes of our own. About this time my father began to show signs of breaking down and asked for permission to withdraw from public life. However, Her Majesty would not hear of this and decided to give him another six months vacation instead. It was his intention to go to Shanghai and see the family physician, but Her Majesty did not approve of this, maintaining that her own doctors were quite as good as any foreign doctor. These doctors therefore attended him for some time, prescribing all kinds of different concoctions daily. After a while he seemed to pick up a little but was still unable to get about on account of having chronic rheumatism. We therefore again suggested that it would be better for him to see his own doctor in Shanghai, who understood my father thoroughly, but Her Majesty could not be made to see it in that light. She said that what we wanted was a little patience, that the Chinese doctors might be slow, but they were sure, and she was convinced they would completely cure my father very soon. The fact of the matter was she was afraid that if my father went to stay in Shanghai the rest of the family would want to be there with him, which was not in her programme at all. So we decided to remain in Peking unless my father showed signs of getting worse.