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Stories by English Authors: The Orient (Selected by Scribners) by Unknown
page 55 of 149 (36%)
all the appearance of a grandee's palace, and within the massive
boundary-walls which surround it, the courtyards, halls, grounds,
summer-houses, and pavilions are not to be exceeded in grandeur and
beauty. The office which had fallen to the lot of Colonel Wen was one
of the most sought after in the province, and commonly only fell to
officers of distinction. Though not without fame in the field, Colonel
Wen's main claim to honour lay in the high degrees he had taken in the
examinations. His literary acquirements gained him friends among
the civil officers of the district, and the position he occupied was
altogether one of exceptional dignity.

Unfortunately, his first wife had died, leaving only a daughter to
keep her memory alive; but at the time when our story opens, his second
spouse, more kind than his first, had presented him with a much-desired
son. The mother of this boy was one of those bright, pretty, gay
creatures who commonly gain the affections of men much older than
themselves. She sang in the most faultless falsetto, she played the
guitar with taste and expression, and she danced with grace and agility.
What wonder, then, that when the colonel returned from his tours of
inspections and parades, weary with travel and dust, he found relief and
relaxation in the joyous company of Hyacinth! And was she not also the
mother of his son? Next to herself, there can be no question that this
young gentleman held the chief place in the colonel's affections; while
poor Jasmine, his daughter by his first venture, was left very much to
her own resources. No one troubled themselves about what she did, and
she was allowed, as she grew up, to follow her own pursuits and to
give rein to her fancies without let or hindrance. From her earliest
childhood one of her lonely amusements had been to dress as a boy, and
so unchecked had the habit become that she gradually drifted into the
character which she had chosen to assume. She even persuaded her father
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