Dominoes is a game played by men and women as well as children. It is different from the American game, being more like the card game of whist. Guessing Pennies always furnishes much amusement to little boys and girls. Chinese coins are made of brass and copper, with a square hole in the middle for convenience in carrying. On one side is a legend in Chinese giving the name of the emperor’s reign and the words “_Tung-pao_,” i. e., _currency_. The game is to guess the name of the reign, when the coin is turned upside down. Another game is played around fruit-stand; it is to guess the number of seeds in an orange. The loser pays for the orange while the winner eats it. There are not many games in which boys and girls play together. If they do play together it is only while they are children, under ten or twelve. Growing-up girls will have nothing whatever to do with boys, though Chinese boys and girls are very sociable, each with friends of their own sex. CHAPTER V. GIRLS OF MY ACQUAINTANCE. I still continually find false ideas in America concerning Chinese customs, manners, and institutions. Small blame to the people at large, who have no means of learning the truth except through newspapers or accounts of travellers who do not understand what they see in passing through our country. From the time of Sir John Mandeville, travellers (with a few noble exceptions) have vied with each other in relating the most wonderful stories about our ancient empire. Accordingly, what I tell in this series of articles about Chinese customs, manners and institutions may often contradict general belief. There is far less of truth told about the “fair section” of the Chinese people than of the sterner sex, because far less is known. What I myself propose to tell is chiefly derived from daily observation of the female members of my family and those of my kindred. Very distant relatives are recognized in China; a man prides himself upon the large number of his connections as well as upon the influence his family exert in the community on account of wealth or position. A “poor relation” there is treated with much more consideration and affection than in this country. Generosity towards that class of unfortunates is so common, and its practice is so strenuously insisted upon, in the moral code of the Chinese, that it almost ceases to be an individual virtue—it is a national virtue.