FAMILY CUSTOMS 115 



this wicked world had been as orthodox as 

 ceremony could make it. Their mother carries no 

 stigma, and is looked on as something of a catch, 

 for will not her encumbrances presently grow up 

 and work for her husband, who can thus live in 

 comfortable idleness ? Owing in great measure to 

 the prevailing licence, the border people, whatever 

 is the case with the true Thibetans, are rapidly 

 degenerating, childless families being the rule rather 

 than the exception. 



Lao's old stepmother was an amorous old lady. 

 Even at the age of sixty she was convinced that 

 much of her youthful charm was still in evidence, 

 and though enjoying to the full her position as a 

 widow, had no desire that her wayward fancy should 

 become crystallised into permanency by a second 

 marriage ceremony. 



At the end of the village street, next door, in 

 fact, to the house of old Kwan-fong, a Chinese scholar, 

 dwelt Wei-sha. He was not an unattractive young 

 man. When he smiled his beautiful white teeth, 

 which are so common a feature among the 

 Thibetans, lit up the whole of his face. Of late, 

 however, his smile had been less frequent, and he 

 would spend days shut up alone in his house, which 

 reeked with the fumes of opium. At one time, 

 before the opium craze seized him, he had been a 

 great hunter, and spent days in the mountains with 

 Lao in pursuit of sheep, roe, and wapiti. 



One day when drinking tea with Lao and his old 

 stepmother, for on the border the strict etiquette of 

 China is replaced by free and easy intercourse 

 between the sexes, he had noticed his host's old 

 stepmother furtively watching him. 



