CHAPTER XIX
Preparation
A bird was singing rapturously in a honagko tree as
Nang Ping rose from her knees. She stood awhile
at her open casement—it had been flung wide all night—listening
to the little feathered flutist, saying good-by
to her garden. The pagoda gleamed like rose-stained
snow in the rosy sunrise, and the girl smiled wanly,
thinking how like a bride's cake it looked—the high
tapering towers, white-sugared and fantastic, that English
brides have. She had seen several at a confectioner's
in Hong Kong, and she had seen an English bride
cut one with her husband's sword at a bridal in Pekin.
It was far prettier, Nang had thought, than the little
cakes, gray and heavy, that Chinese brides have, but not
so nice to the taste—flat and dry. The lotus flowers were
waking now, slowly opening their painted cups of
carmine, white, rose and amethyst; the peacocks were
preening to the day, the king-bird of them all flinging
out his jewels to the sun, and the shabbily-garbed hens,
in the red kissing of the sunrise refulgence, looking to
wear breasts of rose. A lark swayed and tuned on the
yellow tassel of a laburnum, and a bullfinch see-sawed
and throated on the acacia tree. And every gorgeous
tulip was a chalice filled with dew.
"Good-by," the girl said gently, and turned away.
She still wore the rich festive robes of yesterday.
