Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/104

 of T'ang Min blossom again. May he live always in the light of eternal rest and happiness. Huen Su T'ang Min.

Some one there in the still Ingram parlor started to speak, but Mr. BoUiver raised his hand and went on:

Dictated by Mark Ingram to the lesser scribe:

T'ang Min is too generous. He fails to state that though it is true M. Ingram came to his aid with his ship the Fortune of the Indies, that T'ang Min, in saving Ingram's life, received, himself, a wound which may yet prove to be fatal. I cause this to be written. Mark Ingram. September 13, 1850.

The aunts were trying hard to understand it all. Jane was crouched beside Mr. Bolliver, a thousand questions racing through her mind. Mark and Alan stood staring at one another. Outside, beyond the half-drawn curtains, a commonplace cart rattled by on Chesley Street. It was, after all, Aunt Lucia who spoke first.

"But—but I don't understand how this can be," she said.

"Why didn't he tell anybody?"

"Why did he hide the paper away like that,