"On my cottage roof the evening raindrops beat; I draw the blind and near the window take my seat. To my longing gaze no loved one appears; Drip, drip, drip, drip: fast flow my tears."
This he read aloud; and when he had finished, a voice outside said, "You want some one to cap your verses there!" Listening attentively, he knew it was Chiang-hsüeh; and opening the door he let her in. She looked at his stanza, and added impromptu--
"She is no longer in the room; A single lamp relieves the gloom; One solitary man is there; He and his shadow make a pair."
As Huang read these words his tears fell fast; and then, turning to Chiang-hsüeh, he upbraided her for not having been to see him. "I can't come so often as Hsiang-yü did," replied she, "but only now and then when you are very dull." After this she used to drop in occasionally, and Huang said Hsiang-yü was his beloved wife, and she his dear friend, always trying to find out every time she came which flower in the garden she was, that he might bring her home with him, and save her from the fate of Hsiang-yü. "The old earth should not be disturbed," said she, "and it would not do any good to tell you. If you couldn't keep your wife always with you, how will you be sure of keeping a friend?" Huang, however, paid no heed to this, and seizing her arm, led her out into the garden, where he stopped at every peony and asked if this was the one; to which Chiang-hsüeh made no reply, but only put her hand to her mouth and laughed.