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. She had always been accustomed to every
luxury that wealth could buy. Clothed in the richest embroidered
silks and satins, decorated with the rarest pearls and precious
stones, she had serving women and slave girls to wait upon her,
and humour her every whim. One day when we were talking of the
Boxer insurrection she told me the following story:
"Some years ago," she said, "my steward brought me a slave girl
whom he had bought from her father on the street. She was a
bright intelligent and obedient little girl, and I soon became
very fond of her. She told me one day that her grandmother was a
Christian, and that she had been baptized and attended a
Christian school. Her father, however, was an opium-smoker, and
had pawned everything he had, and finally when her grandmother
was absent had taken her and sold her to get money to buy opium.
She asked me to send a messenger to her grandmother and tell her
that she had a good home.
"I was delighted to do so for I knew the old woman would be
distressed lest the child had been sold to a life of shame, or
had found a cruel mistress. Unfortunately, however, my messenger
could find no trace of the grandmother, as the neighbours
informed him that she had left shortly after the disappearance of
the child.
"As the years passed the child grew into womanhood. She was very
capable, kind and thoughtful for others and I learned to depend
upon her in many ways
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