THE MARRIAGE MAKER 149 



That night the Prefect's letter was placed under Wei 

 Ku's Ancestral Tablet, in front of which Wei Ku himself 

 lighted tapers and burned incense. He prostrated himself 

 three times before the tablet and then retired, congratulating 

 himself on his change of luck. In his sleep he dreamt that 

 Kwanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, promised him five sons, all 

 of whom were to serve the Government and rise to the rank 

 of Ministers of State. This in itself was a most favourable 

 omen and helped to put him in the best humour. Early in 

 the morning, after he had breakfasted on a bowl of sweet 

 birds '-nest soup with lotusnuts and lungngan pulp, he 

 proceeded to write his formal reply to the Prefect. 



He said he was overjoyed to find that the oracle was 

 so favourable; he had not dared to hope for so> satisfactory 

 a result. He was profoundly sensible of the high honour that 

 the Prefect proposed to bestow upon him, so high and so 

 great was this honour that in its magnitude it resembled 

 Mount T'ai; 1 and his gratitude was deep and vast as the 

 boundless ocean. He was only too well aware of his own 

 utter worthlessness and stupendous ignorance. Being no- 

 thing but a vile crawling worm, how could he dare to< do 

 otherwise than humbly obey the enlightened commands of 

 so noble and illustrious a person as the Prefect? He, there- 

 fore, while craving indulgence for his own contemptible 

 shortcomings, reverently besought the Prefect to be pleased 

 to speedily devise means for the wedding to take place in 

 due form with all possible despatch. 



That settled matters. On receipt of this very proper 

 reply, written in approved epistolary style and worded accord- 

 ing to the rules of etiquette and propriety, the Prefect set 

 about at once to do the necessary with right goodwill. 



Accordingly a lucky day was chosen for the happy 

 event to take place in the ninth moon, which is the moon 

 of Chrysanthemums, a favourite moon for marriages, and 

 great preparations were taken in hand; for the Prefect, 

 generous soul, spared neither pains nor expense to make the 

 occasion one of unprecedented splendour, as would befit the 

 rank, prestige, and social standing of the contracting parties. 

 After formal ratification of the betrothal, hundreds of in- 

 vitations on red paper, for red is the colour of joy, were 

 forthwith sent out; they were all stamped in gold with a 

 dragon and a phoenix, the former to represent the bride- 

 groom and the latter the bride. 



1 A mountain in Shantung, said by the Chinese to be the highest 

 in China. 



