Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/277

 merely warmed her cramped and frozen being in the careless overflow of a nature that, by happy accident, was full of sunshine and brimmed with radiance.

Ah Wong was grateful, and Ah Wong was honest. She meant to repay. She hated debt; almost all Chinese do. She had loyalty. She had grit. She had Chinese wit. And she had the light wrist of her sex at subterfuge: it is world-wide.

Ejected from the house, she sat down contentedly in the courtyard and began to knit—an industry foreign to Chinese eyes. It brought curious women of the household about her. She had intended that it should. They brought her liangkao and melon seeds—for hospitality was the rule of the house—and she ate all the liangkao and cracked all the melon seeds while the other women chattered to her and to each other.

She said that she was very tired—her lady was a hard taskmistress. She didn't like the English. She was very tired, but she'd like to see something of so beautiful a place, now that she was here, and she tottered about a little wearily from treasure to treasure, but never far from the house, from tiny forest trees a few inches high, in pots the size of thimbles, to an evergreen that was a century old and that had its widest branches cut into birds in full flight. She cried out in ecstasy at a great dragon sprawling on the grass, a dragon of geraniums and foliage plants. And presently she yawned and said that she was very tired, and sat down heavily on a carved stone bench. After a little she fell asleep, and the women giggled at her good-naturedly and left her. The bench was not far from the window that high up looked into the mandarin's sitting-room.