Members of the Society were entertained on December 23 with delightful romance of Chinese life, read by.Mr. Charles Kliene, F.R.G.S. The tale is a very popular one, and Mr. Kliene's version was obtained in South China some years ago. It will well repay reading when published, as no doubt it will be, in the records of the society, especially—as the Chairman of the meeting (the Rev. Isaac Mason) pointed out—for the charming way in which the author describes familiar scenes and characters and for much brilliant and at the same time minutely accurate desefiption. In China, said Mr. Kliene, marriage makers are known as' "the old people beneath the Moon." Whether the go-betweens had anything to do with the moon he did not know, but they certainly had a great deal to do'with the honey-moon. His story was briefly as follows: tHE Goupen AcE, the Tang Dynasty there lived in Sungkiang a young man of lowly estate, Wei Ku—one who, in course of time became famed for his learning, a master of the class sics in that Golden Age of poetry and culture. It chanced that he set out upon a visit. to some friends in the city of Hsiangchow, a city which shared with Soochow the named of "terrestrial paradise" on account of the beauty of the place and there one evening, Wei, went abroad to see the sights.
Having passed through the busy streets, he wandered on to the high road, enchanted with the loveliness of the night. At a lonely spot on the road he came upon a strange-locking old man, sitting on a mound by the roadside, his head over a huge hook which lay across his knees. This book, the old man said—after the youth had diffident-encouraged conversation—was the Register of Marriages, of which he (who had come from the moon) was the appointed custodian, and in which were set down the miarnages destiny had in store for all people in the world. At. the old man's side was a bag containing the silken cords with which these nuptial knots were to be tied.
Quite naturally, Wei ventured to inquire as to, particulars against his own name in the book, and was sorely disappointed upon learning that his future bride was at that monient an infant two years of age, and a child of poverty. Wei expostulated, but received no more consolation than that there was no help for it. What must be, must be. You cannot escape that which the Gods have ordained." The old man described where the infant was to be found in the city and in what circumstances, precisely as Wei
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.