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Pau Lin raised her head and looked her thoughts at the old woman, Sien Tau.

“Yes,” nodded the dame, “’tis a mad place in which to bring up a child.”

Pau Lin went back into the house, gave little Yen his noonday meal, and dressed him with care. His father was to take him out that afternoon. She questioned the boy, as she braided his queue, concerning the white women whom he visited with his father.

It was evening when they returned—Wou Sankwei and his boy. The little fellow ran up to her in high glee. “See, mother,” said he, pulling off his cap, “I am like father now. I wear no queue.”

The mother looked down upon him—at the little round head from which the queue, which had been her pride, no longer dangled.

“Ah!” she cried. “I am ashamed of you; I am ashamed!”

The boy stared at her, hurt and disappointed.

“Never mind, son,” comforted his father. “It is all right.”

Pau Lin placed the bowls of seaweed and chickens’ liver before them and went back to the kitchen where her own meal was waiting. But she did not eat. She was saying within herself: “It is for the white woman he has done this; it is for the white woman!”