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98 STRANGE STORIES FROM

immortality ; * but I thought that perhaps you had not quite forgotten me, and so I came to see you once more." Shang wished her to return home with him ; to which she repUed, " I am no longer what I was that I should mingle in the affairs of mortads. We shall meet again." And as she said this, she disappeared ; but twenty years later, when Shang was one day alone, Miss Quarta walked in. Shang was overjoyed, and begair to address her ; but she answered him, saying, " My name is already enrolled in the register of the Immortals, and I have no right to return to earth. However, out of gratitude to you I determined to announce to you the date of your dissolution, that you might put your affairs in order. Fear nothing ; I will see you safely through to the happy land." She then departed, and on the day named Shang actually died. A relative of a friend of mine, Mr. Li Wen-yii, frequently met the above- mentioned Mr. Shang.*

XX. MR. CHU, THE CONSIDERATE

HUSBAND

At the village of Chu in Chi-yang, there was a man named Chu, who died at the age of fifty and odd years. His family at once proceeded to put on their mourning robes, when suddenly they heard the dead man cry out. Rushing up to the coffin, they found that he had come to life again ; and began, full of joy, to ask him all about it. But the old gentleman rephed only to his wife, sa5dng, " When I died I did not expect to come back. However, by the time I had got a few miles on my way, I thought of the poor old body I was leaving behind me, dependent for everything on others, and with no more enjoyment of Ufe. So I made up my mind to return, and take you away with me." The bystanders thought this was only the disconnected talk of

' Any disembodied spirit whose conduct for a certain term of years is quite satisfactory is competent to obtain this reward. Thus, instead of being bom again on earth, perhaps as an animal, they become angels or good spirits, and live for ever in heaven in a state of supreme beatitude.

Our author occasionally ends up with a remark of this kind ;

and these have undoubtedly had their weight with his too credulous countrymen.