consideration. We soon left the Throne-room for my working-hall, and I did not see her again until after our dinner with the Empress and Ladies, when we went into the Throne-room to make our adieus. As I had not been wearing black for some time (as Her Majesty said she didn’t like it), she now noticed that I had it on and she asked Lady Yu-Keng, in an aside, “why.” She was told that when I knew what anniversary it was, I had put it on on that account. She seemed much touched, took my hand in both hers, and said, “You have a good heart to think of my grief and to have wished to sympathize,” and tears fell from her eyes on my hand, which she held in hers.
Poor lady! Private sorrows and sad memories were not all she had to grieve her now. I had noticed her growing anxiety for many days! She seemed to feel all the gravity of the political situation of China. As the rumors of war between Russia and Japan grew, her anxiety increased and she was looking sad and careworn. She seemed to be full of doubt and fear, and quite unlike her usual self. I fancy she thought of the unprepared state of her country and feared that it might be drawn into this struggle. She seemed to be in doubt as to the course that was best to be taken. Even should the Empire not be drawn into the conflict, two hostile nations were to meet within its borders. The struggle was to take place in Manchuria, the cradle of the Dynasty. That beautiful, smiling country would be ravished by war, and the awful possibility of the ancestral tombs being desecrated, loomed up before her. The desecration of the tombs of one’s ancestors in China is supposed to bring dire consequences upon the family, and a pious Chinaman would face any material loss rather than run the risk of these tombs being desecrated. She felt it all, and was sad indeed.