Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/116

 peries and suspended fans; and before every divinity—they were all of tin—stood a little altar with holy water, flowers, and burning wax-lights. Supreme in the temple, however, stood Fu, the supreme divinity, dressed in a garment of silken stuff of the holy yellow color. At the foot of the altar sate a living figure, a young priest. He appeared to be praying, but in the midst of his prayer he sunk into deep thought; and it certainly was sinful, because his cheeks burned, and his head bowed very low. Poor Souihoung! Perhaps he was dreaming about working in one of the little flower-gardens which lie before every house behind the long wall of the street, and which was a far pleasanter occupation to him than trimming the wax-lights in the temple; or was he longing to be seated at the well-covered board, and between every course to be wiping his lips with silver paper? or was it a sin so great that if he had dared to utter it, the heavenly powers must have punished him with death? Were his thoughts bold enough to take flight with the ship of the barbarians to their home, the remote England? No, his thoughts did not fly so