Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/136

 he saw no necessity to honour her memory at the expense of his own domestic peace. His wife donned her gayest robes and made a feast. Weng alone stood apart, and in funereal sackcloth moved through the house like an accusing ghost. Each day his father met him with a frown, the woman whom alone he must regard as his mother with a mocking smile, but he passed them without any word of dutiful and submissive greeting. The period of all seemly mourning ended—it touched that allotted to a legal parent; still Weng cast himself down and made no pretence to hide his grief. His father's frown became a scowl, his mother's smile framed a biting word. A wise and venerable friend who loved the youth took him aside one day and with many sympathetic words counselled restraint.

"For," he said, "your conduct, though affectionate towards the dead, may be urged by the ill-disposed as disrespectful towards the living. If you have a deeper end in view, strive towards it by a less open path."

"You are subtle and esteemed in wisdom," replied Weng, "but neither of those virtues can restore a broken jar. The wayside fountain must one day dry up at its source, but until then not even a mountain placed upon its mouth can pen back its secret stores. So is it with unfeigned grief."

"The analogy may be exact," replied the aged friend, shaking his head, "but it is no less truly said, 'The wise tortoise keeps his pain inside.' Rest assured, on the disinterested advice of one who has no great experience of mountains and hidden springs, but a lifelong knowledge of Wu Chi and of his amiable