Page:Inside Canton.djvu/211

210 dimple, which fixed the eye of the observer, and diminished the apparent size of the mouth. This device ought to find favour at the hands of the artists of our fashion-books, whose model women have mouths much smaller than their eyes.

While conversing with Pan-se-Chen about his house and his ménage, I begged Callery to ask him how it happened that, having so lovely and every way worthy a partner as Madame Li, he allowed himself the luxury of these tsié?

"What would you have me do?" answered the great mandarin; "I had them before I got married, and I cannot send them away now."

"Very good," I rejoined; "but it appears to me that you have bought some since."

"Undoubtedly! To be sure! It is a matter of luxury, of course; one cannot help certain superfluities in the way of expenditure. I am told that in your country rich men buy horses!"

"Yes; but after having bought them they do not for that reason keep them for ever in their stables; when their humour is satisfied they sell them, or exchange them &hellip;

"That is wise," said Pan-se-Chen, shaking his head sagely; "but a woman is not like a horse. She is tenderer; she does not kick, and she seldom bites; but she can speak; and it is not so easy to get rid of her, when she asks you to keep her, as it is to dispose of a horse!"