Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/191

 beauty, and of surpassingly voluptuous grace; but no two were in any way alike. On they trooped, filling the moonlit garden with fair forms; while the bewildered recluse gazed wonderingly at the strange scene, marvelling within himself whence they had all come. At last he recollected himself sufficiently to invite them to enter his pavilion; and when they were all seated he found that he could restrain his curiosity no longer.

"Ladies," he said, "I cannot express my delight at your arrival, unexpected as it is; but I do beg you to tell me at least what your names are, and what relative it is that you are in search of, that you have suddenly invaded my poor domains with your bright presences in the very dead of night."

Then arose a maiden in a green robe, and announced that her name was Aspen. Pointing to one in a white robe, "And hers," she said, "is Plum; the one in a purple garment is named Peach;" and so she went on, presenting them one after another, till she came to a little girl in a crimson robe, whose name, she said, was Pomegranate. "But although we have all different names," added the maiden, "we are all sisters, and all live together. Now the Lady Wind, who is our maternal aunt eighteen times removed, said some days ago that she was coming to visit us; but she has never done so; and as the moon is unusually brilliant to-night, we sisters are going to visit her instead. So we thought that, as you have always been such a dear friend and protector to us, we should like to pay you a call on our way; and here we are, you see!"

Hsuän-wei was just about to make a suitable reply when in came the Lady of the Azure Robe, and