Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/121

 CHAPTER XVI

Mrs. Gregory bore her part in the pretty little function with creditable imitation of Chinese propriety. She had been coached by a woman at Government House. She blessed her own foresight that she had, and reproached herself that Hilda had not.

Nang Ping raised her bowl of scalding tea almost to her forehead, and then held it out first towards Mrs. Gregory and then towards Hilda, and waited for them to drink—and so did Low Soong; and when they drank, the two girls bowed several times and then drained their tiny bowls.

When the sweetmeats were pressed upon them Mrs. Gregory took one candied rose petal, and then—after much urging—took, with a fine display of reluctance, the smallest crystallized violet on the dish. But when Miss Wu entreated Hilda, "I beg you to condescend to accept and pardon my abominable food," Hilda helped herself generously to five or six of the glittering dainties. A guest at a London dinner-table who had seized in her own hands a roast fowl by its stark legs, conveyed it to her own plate, and then began to gnaw it, without even wrenching it into portions as Tudor Elizabeth would have wrenched it, would not have committed a more outrageous act. Nang Ping immediately helped herself even more generously than Hilda had, and Low Soong,