Her Majesty had given me permission to visit my father twice every month, and everything appeared to be going along nicely until one day one of Her Majesty's servant girls told me that Her Majesty was trying to arrange another marriage for me. At first I did not take any notice of this, but shortly afterwards Her Majesty informed me that everything was arranged and that I was to be married to a certain Prince whom she had chosen. I could see that Her Majesty was waiting for me to say something, so I told her that I was very much worried at that time about my father and begged her to allow the matter to stand over for the time being at any rate. This made Her Majesty very angry, and she told me that she considered me very ungrateful after all she had done for me. I didn't reply, and as her Majesty did not say anything more at the time, I tried to forget about it. However, on my next visit home, I told my father all about it, and as before he was strongly opposed to such a marriage. He suggested that on my return to the Palace I should lay the whole matter before Li Lien Ying, the head eunuch, and explain my position, for if anybody could influence Her Majesty, he was the one. I, therefore, took the first opportunity of speaking to him. At first he appeared very reluctant to interfere in the matter, and said he thought I ought to do as Her Majesty wished, but on my stating that I had no desire to marry at all, but was quite willing to remain at Court in my present position, he promised to do his best for me. I never heard anything further about my marriage, either from Her Majesty or Li Lien Ying, and therefore concluded that he had been able to arrange the matter satisfactorily. The Summer passed without anything further important occurring. During the eighth moon the bamboos were cut down and here again the Court ladies were called upon to assist, our work being to carve designs and characters on the cut trees, Her Majesty assisting. These were afterwards made into chairs, tables and other useful articles for Her Majesty's teahouse. During the long Autumn evenings Her Majesty would teach us Chinese history and poetry and every tenth day would put us through an examination in order to find out how much we had learned, prizes being awarded for proficiency. The younger eunuchs also took part in these lessons and some of their answers to Her Majesty's questions were very amusing. If Her Majesty were in a good humor she would laugh with the rest of us, but sometimes she would order them to be punished for their ignorance and stupidity. However, as they were quite accustomed to being punished they did not seem to mind very much and forgot all about it the next minute.