"What do you mean, Lili-Tsee?" asked her husband, in consternation,
thinking that his poor wife had taken leave of her senses.

"What do I mean? What do you mean? I should think. The idea of your
keeping portraits in my rose-leaf vase. Here, take it and treasure it,
for I do not want it, the wicked, wicked woman!" and here poor Lili-Tsee
burst out crying.

"I cannot understand," said her bewildered husband.

"Oh, you can't?" she said, laughing hysterically. "I can, though, well
enough. You like that hideous, villainous-looking woman better than your
own true wife. I would say nothing if she were at any rate beautiful;
but she has a vile face, a hideous face, and looks wicked and murderous,
and everything that is bad!"

"Lili-Tsee, what do you mean?" asked her husband, getting exasperated in
his turn. "That portrait is the living image of my poor dead father. I
found it in the street the other day, and put it in your vase
for safety."

Lili-Tsee's eyes flashed with indignation at this apparently barefaced
lie.

"Hear him!" she almost screamed. "He wants to tell me now that I do not
know a woman's face from a man's."

Kiki-Tsum was wild with indignation, and a quarrel began in good
earnest. The street-door was a little way open, and the loud, angry
words attracted the notice of a _bonze_ (one of the Japanese priests)