About three hundred years ago! when the: gods tock a greater personal interest in the doings of mankind, and particularly so in the case of China, there lived a very kind old man, named Liv, and his aged wife. Possibly because he had no children to vex him with their misbehaviour in his declining years, his heart was of a remarkable softness, and though he did not earn much—for [there is little money in the plaiting' of straw shoes—he managed not only to provide the very simple necessaries for himself and his wife, ut was able to dispense some alms among those who were even poorer than he. Fortunately for him, he had. to pay no rent, for. when his father mounted the dragon and set out for the: Yellow Springs, he left him a dilapidated old house and a small, Piece of ground. And so, iving ent free, he had a little money to dispense ' among his neighbours. Not much, mark you; for, work as you may, you cannot expect to plait many shoes during the day, and when you have done so the return is very small indeed.
It was probably for that reason that Liu was unable to cultivate the small" patch around his house. After all, when you're about eighty years of" age, and the wife is no Younger' than' she ought to be, you have simply gat to have a man around to do the rough work. That costs mone; and means an extra mouth to feed, and though Liu had been so good to his neighbours for years paxt-there was no one to drop vound and put in an afternoon' hoosing. Which' only goes to prove that ingratitude is the rolling stone which is sharper than a serpent's tooth, enn One summer the little plot became overgrown with a singular herb with red leaves. It was something] new in the neighbourhood, and though it grew apace and threatened to choke all entrance to the house itself, Mr. and Mrs. Liu let it remain, After all it was not doing much harm and served to amuse the neighbours.
Eventually, however, _somewhere about the middle of' the summer, which, if you remember was a particularly warm one, the weed grew]
high that Lin remarked to the 'You know, my dear, it's about time.we cut this stuff down. You might get busy to-morrow. I'd do it myself, but the lumbago is so bad, that I doubt whether I shall be able' to do very much of anything."
Mrs. Liu, who had been thoroughly' well trained, acquiesced meekly and the matter was fixed.
That-night while Liu slept one of the deities of the neighbourhood roped round and seated on the edge of Lin's bed asked:—
"Well, how's things?"
"Not 80 good," replied Liu "I'm having a lot of trouble with the old Indy, "She don't seem to plait there ere shoes 20 well as she used, she's let the place go to rack and rain, the yard's all covered up with weed. I'd have given her a ticking' off about it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.