Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/377

 attentions originated in an irresistible impulse to tease. Pao-yii and Tai-yii were already lovers in so far that they were always quarrelling ; the more so, that their quarrels invariably ended, as they should end, in the renewal of love. As a rule, Tai-yii fell back upon the ultima ratio of all women tears ; and of course Pao-yii, who was not by any means wanting in chivalry, had no alternative but to wipe them away. On one particular occasion, Tai-yii declared that she would die ; upon which Pao-yii said that in that case he would become a monk and devote his life to Buddha ; but in this instance it was he who shed the tears and she who had to wipe them away.

All this time Tai-yii and Pao-ch'ai were on terms of scrupulous courtesy. Tai-yii's father had recently died, and her fortunes now seemed to be bound up more closely than ever with those of the family in which she lived. She had a handsome gold ornament given her to match Pao-ch'ai's amulet, and the three young people spent their days together, thinking only how to get most enjoyment out of every passing hour. Sometimes, how- ever, a shade of serious thought would darken Tai-yii's moments of enforced solitude ; and one day Pao-yii surprised her in a secluded part of the garden, engaged in burying flowers which had been blown down by the wind, while singing the following lines :

" Flowers fade and fly,

and flying fill the sky ; Their bloom departs, their perfume gone,

yet who stands pitying by ? And wandering threads of gossamer

on the summer-house are seen, And falling catkins lightly dew-steeped

strike the embroidered screen.

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