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9

we reached our objective, Shu Lien Chi, most famous fan shop in China. Hangchou fans are the fans of the people who are, and Shu Lien Chi is the shop that has made Hangchou famous in modern times. It is curious to step into a large and busy Chinese schop  [[line extending from 'c' downwards to 'stok']] and see framed certificates of award from world expositions on the walls. We looked over some few samples of their stok [[line extending upwards from 'stok' to 'schop']] for nearly an hour, and came away with four. I got a large sandalwood fan I had been wanting, and a small black [[underlined]] wu-mu [[/underlined]] one to wear with my dinner jacket; Dorothy a wide blue one and tiny silver one. We explored our way back to the lake through stone-paved narrow byways, and finally reached the shore. We were warm, so hurried home for tea, rested a while, and took our lunch out in a boat on the lake in time for sunset.

The boatman paddled us towards the Island of the Three Pools of the Moon's Reflection, and by the time we rounded the point the sunset glow had faded and the fifth month's full moon was climbing from cloud to cloud up the heaven. Still, so still the boat slipped out from under the willows into the light that we caught one of the little stone pagodas that rise in the lake marking the spots where the three deep pools that harbored spirits are, squarely in the golden path of the moon's reflection. Who would not come from half the world away to see the Three Pools of the Moon's Reflection catching and tossing from one to the other the gold of the fifth month's full round moon?

Many boats were on the lake and there was much sweet music as we circled around toward the Imperial Island. The Chinese know what music fits a scene like this and the many various instruments work together for beauty to them that love the lake and the night and the moon. If I had started when I was a small boy as many Chinese small boys start, I might now be able to play the long slim bamboo flute that is made for a man to play when he sits alone in the moonlight and whose sound is so delicate that only a few can listen and hear it, and so plaintive sweet [[^that]] beauty walks abroad on feet that leave pink fragrant lotus in her train.