Page:Mrs. Spring Fragrance - Far - 1912.djvu/262

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250
TALES OF CHINESE CHILDREN

horizon. Very serious were their faces and voices. That ship, sailing from west to east, carried from each a message to his and her kin—a message which humbly but firmly set forth that they were resolved to act upon their belief and to establish a home in the new country, where they would ever pray for blessings upon the heads of those who could not see as they could see, nor hear as they could hear.

"My mother will weep when she reads," sighed the girl.

"Pau Tsu," the young man asked, "do you repent?"

"No," she replied, "but—"

She drew from her sleeve a letter written on silk paper.

The young man ran his eye over the closely penciled characters.

"'Tis very much in its tenor like what my father wrote to me," he commented.

"Not that."

Pau Tsu indicated with the tip of her pink forefinger a paragraph which read:

Are you not ashamed to confess that you love a youth who is not yet your husband? Such disgraceful boldness will surely bring upon your head the punishment you deserve. Before twelve moons go by you will be an Autumn Fan.