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. In rare cases, where the concubine has had the
good fortune to supply the heir to the throne or to a princely
family, she is raised to the position of empress or princess. But
this is seldom done, and is usually remembered against the woman.
She is never received with the same feeling as if she had been
first wife.
One day I was asked to go to a palace to see a concubine who was
ill. In such cases I always went directly to the Princess, and
she took me to see the sick one. As we entered the room there was
a nurse standing with a child in her arms, and the Princess
called my attention to a blemish on its face.
"Can it be removed?" she asked.
I looked at it and, seeing that it would require but a minor
operation, told her it could.
While attending to the patient, the nurse, fearing that the child
would be hurt, left the room and another entered with another
child.
"Now," said the Princess when we had finished with the patient,
"we will attend to the child." And she called the woman to her.
"But," said the woman, "this is not the child."
"There," said the Princess, "you see I do not know my own
children."
But I left our friend receiving the morning salutations of her
household. These over, she dismisses them to their own
apartments, where each mother sits down with her own children to
her morning meal, waited on by her own servants. If there are
still unmarried daughters, they remain with their mother; if
none, she eats alone
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