Upon this encouragement, Ling proceeded to unfold his
mind, not withholding anything which appeared to be of interest, no
matter how slight. When he had reached Canton without any perilous
adventure, Mian breathed more freely; as he recorded the interview at
the Office of Warlike Deeds and Arrangements, she trembled at the
insidious malignity of the evil person Li Keen. The conversation with
the wise reader of the future concerning the various states of such as
be officially dead almost threw her into the rigid sickness, from
which, however, the wonderful circumstance of the discovered
properties of the gold fluid quickly recalled her. But to Ling's great
astonishment no sooner had he made plain the exceptional advantages
which he had derived from the circumstances, and the nature of the
undertaking at which he had arrived with Chang-ch'un, than she became
a prey to the most intolerable and unrestrained anguish.
"Oh, my devoted but excessively ill-advised lover," she exclaimed
wildly, and in tones which clearly indicated that she was inspired by
every variety of affectionate emotion, "has the unendurable position
in which you and all your household will be placed by the degrading
commercial schemes and instincts of the mercenary-souled person
Chang-ch'un occupied no place in your generally well-regulated
intellect? Inevitably will those who drink our almond tea, in order to
have an opportunity of judging the value of the appointments of the
house, pass the jesting remark that while the Lings assuredly have 'a
dead person's bones in the secret chamber,' at the present they will
not have one in the family graveyard by reason of the death of Ling
himself.
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