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 side of distaff; his honorable name is Wu Li Chang. We are Chinese, we of our house, but now in some of our blood we are Manchu too."

Mrs. Gregory smiled up at the girl. "Will you not sit here too?" And Nang Ping bowed and curled up on the other end of the big seat.

Ah Wong opened her mistress's parasol and brought it, and Mrs. Gregory took it with a grateful "Ah!" "We have enjoyed ourselves so much in your wonderful country, Miss Wu," she went on; "we are quite sorry our time here is drawing to a close. You know—but I forgot, you know nothing of us, of course—well, we are going soon, going home."

"All of you go?" Nang Ping knew that they all were to go, but she could not resist the self-inflicted pain of hearing it again.

"Yes, all four of us—we are just the four—and I think my son will be glad to get home again, after a year in the East."

"I doubt that not," the girl replied, in an odd, quiet voice. "But," she added, reaching up one ring-heavy hand to pull down a flower, only to pitch it aside when she had smelt it once—the Chinese rarely do that—"but he said he liked the East."

"Oh! yes, indeed he does. We all do. Who could help it? But, after all, it is not quite the same thing as home, you know, especially to a man; and, besides, Basil has many friends whom he longs to see again. And"—adding this good-naturedly, anxious to interest the girl and smiling significantly—"we don't want an old bachelor in our family, you know; we have but the one son."

"'Bachelor'—that is one English word I do not know."