- out looking, the distress on Florence Gregory's face.
"Mr. Gregory," he interposed, "your tea," and pointed to Gregory's waiting cup.
They all were waiting to drink together; not to have done so would have been a rudeness.
"Oh!" Gregory vouchsafed, lifting the tiny piece of porcelain critically and tasting the brew gingerly when he had discarded the covering saucer a little roughly. And when he drank, the others drank with him.
He tasted the delicate tea superciliously, and disapproved it frankly. "Here, boy," he called to one of the Wu servants, and holding out the cup with a disgusted grimace, "take it away." The servant with the Wu crest embroidered on his back bowed low, stepped forward, bowed lower, and then took the offending handle-*less cup and gravely bore it away. And the four women looked on, Hilda amused, his wife distressed, the two Chinese girls smilingly imperturbable. It is difficult to decide which owes China the more apology—English missionaries or English manners.
"By the way, Miss Wu," Gregory said, speaking staccato between sugared mouthfuls—he had appropriated the nearest dish of sweetmeats to his sole use, and evidently approved its candied contents as much as he had disapproved the tea—"I'm very dissatisfied with your father."
Nang Ping smiled a little haughtily, rising as she spoke. "I am sorry my honorable father should offend."
"Yes, so am I. Of course, business is business. I admit I live up to that myself, and I must expect others to. But I have heard that he has just bought over my head—over my head, mind you—a dock site which is in-
