The bitter tea of General Yen

Megan, drawing her chair over to the window, saw that the rain had given an air of transcience to the solid Chinese earth. For the moment it had stopped raining and all the pool...

Inside the house Megan sat down by the fireplace, in which a fire was being built and lighted by the coolie. In leaving the street she had turned her back on China; the house sh...

When the Jacksons returned for tea she told them all about the wrecked car, which they said they had seen as they came in, and particularly about the extreme callousness of the...

The next morning early Megan went to her window. The rain had momentarily stopped, but the sky was gray and low and it would surely rain again. Along the muddy road passed the C...

On one of those blue and white days that sometimes come as a voluptuous relief in the midst of rain, and at about noon, the city was taken. Mrs. Jackson and Megan spent the morn...

But when Doctor Strike and Mr. Jackson returned about six o'clock they brought the disquieting news that they had been unable to get into Chapei and to do so it would be necessa...

When they reached the house it was seven o'clock. The house was cold, for the coolies had let the fires die down, and when Mrs. Jackson fussed about, spurring the boys to activi...

They entered the Concession at the Avenue Joffre and drove down it at tremendous speed. At this hour it was empty of people, and seen in the half-darkness and misty rain, it loo...

They stood for a moment without moving and Megan heard the heavy breathing of Miss Minton, punctuated by one long sigh of resignation from Miss Reed. Then a match scratched once...

At the street door they stopped for a moment and listened. No sound came from the street, but they heard once more at a little distance the crackle of rifle fire. The Doctor see...

The circles that whirled around Megan's head came dangerously close, but there seemed to be no way to stop them because she floated on darkness unsupported. Then something else...

It was an elaborate, brass bed enclosed on three sides and heaped with bright satin quilts. Megan had been in it all the afternoon of her arrival and all the next day. Now it wa...

Some one knocked at the door. Megan said, "Come in" several times before it was opened. The young orderly with the salmon-pink silk cord about his neck stood in the doorway. He...

Megan spent the rest of the day on the bed or sitting by the window. She felt no desire to leave her room to see what was beyond the tiled roofs, to meet half-way any new experi...

The next morning she felt very much better, and after her European breakfast she decided to go out into the garden. No one had told her to keep to her room. As she opened her do...

Megan slept out the rest of the afternoon until well after dark. At about nine o'clock she ate again and while she was eating the General's orderly brought her a note.

Megan slept heavily and as she came slowly out of unconsciousness she checked off one by one the familiar sounds of the yamen, the farmyard crow of the roosters, the soft thud o...

A sharp whistle sounded outside her window, a sound as unmistakably European as Caruso's voice. Megan knew it must be Mr. Shultz. She waited until it came again, with greater ur...

He had scarcely gone when Megan heard a timid knock on her door. She called but as no one came in she went to open it herself. Mah-li stood outside wearing her little fur-collar...

She was still standing in a rather cold and discouraged preoccupation when the orderly came with a note from the General asking her to drive with him. She decided at once that s...

Back in her room, Megan sat by the window and watched the daylight slowly fade into a twilight opalescent with mists from the lake and mountains. The essential lines of the roof...

The amah came in, turned on the light, and a moment later her supper arrived. Megan ate it, conscious that she was tired now mentally and physically. The food brought a warmth t...

The door opened and a gray-clad officer stepped in. He held on to the door-knob and, swaying a little, looked wildly from face to face. Then his eyes fixed themselves on the Gen...

The little coast steamer rolled laboriously up to Shanghai. Mr. Shultz got a deck chair and dragged it forward so that Megan, who was very seasick, could get the breeze. She lay...