Only an
insignificant portion of the year remained, yet the affairs of Lee
Sing were in no more prosperous a condition than before, nor had he
found an opportunity to set aside any store of taels. Each day the
unsupportable Pe-tsing became more and more obtrusive and self-
conceited, even to the extent of throwing far into the air coins of
insignificant value whenever he chanced to pass Lee in the street, at
the same time urging him to leap after them and thereby secure at
least one or two pieces of money against the day of calculating. In a
similar but entirely opposite fashion, Lila and Lee experienced the
acutest pangs of an ever-growing despair, until their only form of
greeting consisted in gazing into each other's eyes with a soul-
benumbing expression of self-reproach.
"Yet at this very time, when even the natural and unalterable powers
seemed to be conspiring against the success of Lee's modest and
inoffensive hopes, an event was taking place which was shortly to
reverse the entire settled arrangement of persons and affairs, and
involved Fow Hou in a very inextricable state of uncertainty. For, not
to make a pretence of concealing a matter which has been already in
part revealed, the Mandarin Chan Hung had by this time determined to
act in the manner which Ming-hi had suggested; so that on a certain
morning Lee Sing was visited by two persons, bearing between them a
very weighty sack of taels, who also conveyed to him the fact that a
like amount would be deposited within his door at the end of each
succeeding seven days.
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