An ill-fated girl happens to meet an ill-fated young man. the Hu Lu Bonze adjudicates the Hu Lu case. Tai-yue, for we shall now return to our story, having come, along with her cousin to madame Wangs apartments, found madame Wang discussing certain domestic occurrences with the messengers, who had arrived from her elder brothers wifes home, and conversing also about the case of homicide, in which the family of her mothers sister had become involved, and other such relevant topics. Perceiving how pressing and perplexing were the matters in which madame Wang was engaged, the young ladies promptly left her apartments, and came over to the rooms of their widow sister-in-law, Mrs. Li. This Mrs. Li had originally been the spouse of Chia Chu. Although Chu had died at an early age, he had the good fortune of leaving behind him a son, to whom the name of Chia Lan was given. He was, at this period, just in his fifth year, and had already entered school, and applied himself to books. This Mrs. Li was also the daughter of an official of note in Chin Ling. Her fathers name was Li Shou-chung, who had, at one time, been Imperial Libationer. Among his kindred, men as well as women had all devoted themselves to poetry and letters; but ever since Li Shou-chung continued the line of succession, he readily asserted that the absence of literary attainments in his daughter was indeed a virtue, so that it soon came about that she did not apply herself in real earnest to learning; with the result that all she studied were some parts of the Four Books for women, and the Memoirs of excellent women, that all she read did not extend beyond a limited number of characters, and that all she committed to memory were the examples of these few worthy female characters of dynasties of yore; while she attached special importance to spinning and female handiwork. To this reason is to be assigned the name selected for her, of Li Wan (Li, the weaver), and the style of Kung Tsai (Palace Sempstress)。 |