"T

THE WALL *

BY HARRIET WELLES

HEY have a palace with over three hundred rooms that, with the gardens, takes up a half-mile square. The old prince, his eight sons, and their wives and children live there. They have Eurasians, from the mission, to teach the children English; but I guess you'll be the first foreigner who ever got nearer than the wall. It's the real thing in walls!" asserted the Scotch captain of the Yangtze River steamer when Mrs. Allen told of her engagement and asked for directions.

And Marjorie Allen, rattling over the uneven road in a ricksha, agreed with him; the wall built of huge blocks of stone towered ten feet over her head, the bronze coping giving out sharp gleams in the afternoon sunshine.

"If Elsie Marvin could be dropped down here!" thought Marjorie, whimsically remembering Elsie's exasperated remonstrances at receptions or dances in Washington, fifteen years before: "Why are you always bothering with that Chinese girl? She's stiff as a poker and stupid as an owl! Being at the embassy doesn't mean anything—she probably runs a laundry at home. You'll never go to China. Why do

you

bother to be nice to her?" "Poor Elsie wasn't a good judge of people," sighed

*From "Anchors Aweigh." Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Marjorie Allen, leaning forward to see the great gate revealed by a turn in the narrow road.

A servant, leaning against the massive barrier screening the opening, came forward. "Miss-ses Al-len?" he asked, and at her answering nod turned and shouted. Twice he repeated it before his voice penetrated the indescribable din, and the ponderous gates swung slowly back.

Marjorie Allen hesitated at the scene disclosed.

Piles of luggage, scores of servants, a heavy travelling-carriage with horses, a vermilion-lacquered chair and bearers, carved and gilded chests mingled in chaotic confusion; while mafoos and coolies lounged or, oblivious to the uproar, slept, although the palace enclosing the stone-paved courtyard on three sides formed a sounding-board that echoed and re-echoed all sounds.

"What can it mean?" wondered Mrs. Allen, following her guide as he threaded his way toward an arched doorway, then down a long corridor paved with squares of white marble to a great carved screen. Stopping, he beckoned her to enter.

"Ong?" a voice questioned.

"Yes, Excellency, and the American lady," the servant answered.

"How pleasant to again see you!" welcomed the princess cordially. "Very much I liked your writing me; all the long years rolled back and I saw once more the wide streets of Washington-and the embassyand my dead uncle. Almost a dream seems that winter."

She spoke slowly, clearly, and very carefully. "Your mother? That kind and gentle lady! And your father-and the husband in the navy of America?

Very happy am I that his ship comes to my country and gives me the sight of you."

Marjorie Allen smiled through a blur of tears. "Home seems very far away! Mother and father were well when I last heard; they will be interested to know that I have seen you. Mother always inquired about you, after you left Washington; your aunt told her of your marriage-that's how I knew where to write you.'

The princess nodded.

"How interesting this is!" said Majorie Allen enthusiastically; "your courtyard was like a Bakst setting."

"You discover us in confusion," explained the princess; "my brother-by-law and his new wife arrived but an hour ago. Their servants, I fear, still encumber the courtyard."

"How I wish I might have seen them!" cried Marjorie Allen enviously.

Palaces were a novelty-but a Chinese prince arriving with his bride!

The princess smiled.

"Will you sit here?" she asked, motioning to a carved bench in the deep window. Turning, she spoke in Chinese, and Mrs. Allen saw that they were not alone. In a shadowy corner of the long room a woman sat huddled in a great chair beside a table, her face hidden against her arms.

Reluctantly she lifted her head, and Marjorie Allen gave a little sigh of tribute to her loveliness. From the magnificent pearls outlining the heavy pins in her blue-black hair to the points of her tiny embroidered slippers she was as exquisite as a flower. But Marjorie Allen's eyes wandered from the face that bloomed

startlingly against the somber paneling to the perfect hands-heritage of generations of idleness-that lay against the dark wood of the table.

The woman looked at her.

Heavy-eyed, she glanced unhurriedly at the visitor's tailored dress, plain hat, and English shoes. She hid her head on her arms again.

"Oh, Aisan!" reproved the princess, turning apologetically to her guest. "My sister-by-law-Aisanhas no children; so to-day her husband brings home a second wife," she explained calmly.

Marjorie Allen gasped.

"How dreadful-how degrading! The poor woman," she cried, looking compassionately at the motionless, bowed figure.

The princess seemed puzzled.

"I do not understand," she said; "there will be no poverty for Aisan. Life goes on the same, and would, if my brother-by-law brought home eight wives-or eighteen; there is plenty for all."

"But to ask her to live in the same house with the others! How can she bear it?" questioned Marjorie vehemently.

The princess sighed.

"Very thankful am I, during these days with Aisan, that my honored father so insisted on difficult books and the Confucian lessons that taught obedience and restraint," she said. "When I came from Washington very brave was I, and very determined to marry a poor young man who talked much. My father knew best! A husband whom you love-most miserable can he make you.'

"No one likes having her husband won away, even if she doesn't love him," asserted Marjorie Allen.

"As for Aisan, soon, I think, she will laugh at these days; she has beauty, and that the new wife has not,' explained the princess calmly.

Marjorie Allen shuddered.

"But I forget," apologized the princess; "your steamer stops only a few hours, and time goes quickly. You might wish to see the palace? Or the gray garden? A famous one it is, in China-many hundreds of years old."

She glanced toward the silent figure in the chair, hesitated, and, crossing the room, spoke softly in Chinese. The woman neither looked up nor answered.

"Shall we go now?" she asked, turning. "My sisterby-law speaks no English," she added when, followed by servants carrying trays of teacups and bowls of salted watermelon seeds, they went slowly down the wide stone walk.

"What did you say to her-is there anything you could say that would comfort her?" asked Marjorie Allen, haunted by the dumb misery of the silent figure.

"I told her, to-day last not forever-already the shadows lengthen, and in the end it will not matter; but time was when I also thought beauty everything! One of your friends that winter in Washington-very lovely she was-men waited in little groups to dance with her. I have wondered-is she happy?" she asked.

Mrs. Allen shook her head.

"What a coincidence that you should ask for Elsie Marvin!" she said. "No, she has had a miserable life. She divorced her first husband because of another woman; he pays her alimony and she has been married and divorced twice since.

"Alimony? Divorced?" questioned the princess.