Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/31

 the thirty-ninth of his age. We are now at liberty to return to the time of his accession, and trace the course of the more interesting events which marked his domestic history. During the first decade of his reign, affairs of state were placed under the direction of the Emperor's guardian, Lü Pu-wei, whom he created Marquis of Wên Hsin. Now, it will be remembered that the Queen Dowager, widow of the Prince I-jên, had begun her career as the concubine of this man, then a travelling vendor of curiosities; and no sooner was the Prince her husband dead than the relations formerly existing between the two became renewed. For some time the secret of their intercourse seems to have been pretty successfully preserved; but it could not remain so always, and the other Ministers of State began to suspect some scandal. The new Marquis then hit upon a very strange and crooked expedient for averting the danger that might come upon himself. Among his retainers there was a young and very handsome lad named Lao Ai, who, from his soft and beardless face, might very well pass for a eunuch. He suggested, then, to the Queen Dowager that Lao Ai should be admitted into the number of her attendants, in order that, should any further scandal arise about his own familiarities with Her Majesty, suspicion might be diverted towards this boy. The one-sidedness of this scheme seems curious enough, and we are at first disposed to wonder that the selfishness of her paramour did not turn the Queen's affection into disgust. But this insatiable woman, who was but thirty years of age, no sooner saw the beautiful page provided for her than she consented at once to the arrangement, and forthwith abandoned herself to the unrestrained indulgence of her new passion.