Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/371

 were enjoying the fruits of ancestral success when this story opens. The brothers had each a son and heir ; but at the date at which we are now, fathers and sons had all four passed away. The wife of one of the sons only was still alive, a hale and hearty old lady of about eighty years of age. Of her children, one was a daughter. She had married and gone away south, and her daughter, Tai-yii, is the heroine of this tale. The son of the old lady's second son and first cousin to Tai-yu is the hero, living with his grandmother. His name is Pao-yii.

The two noble families were now at the very zenith of wealth and power. Their palatial establishments were replete with every luxury. Feasting and theatricals were the order of the day, and, to crown all, Pao-yii's sister had been chosen to be one of the seventy-two wives allotted to the Emperor of China. No one stopped to think that human events are governed by an inevitable law of change. He who is mighty to-day shall be lowly to- morrow : the rich shall be made poor, and the poor rich. Or if any one, more thoughtful than the rest, did pause awhile in knowledge of the appointments of Heaven, he was fain to hope that the crash would not come, at any rate, in his own day.

Things were in this state when Tai-yii's mother died, and her father decided to place his motherless daughter under the care of her grandmother at Peking. Accom- panied by her governess, the young lady set out at once for the capital, and reached her destination in safety. It is not necessary to dwell upon her beauty nor upon her genius, though both are minutely described in the original text. Suffice it to say that during the years which have elapsed since she first became known to the public, many

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