Front matter

E-text prepared by MWS, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)

Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/streetofprecious00waln

The Street of Precious Pearls

by

Nora Waln

NEW YORK THE WOMANS PRESS 1921

Copyright, 1921, by National Board of Young Womens Christian Associations of the United States of America

To Grace Coppock, who first encouraged me to go into the Far East, I owe deep gratitude.

From the women of China I have learned that World Fellowship is not alone an intellectual concept but a natural law in accordance with which the hearts of all women throb to the same rhythmic beat of the Universe.

To the women of America I dedicate this story of the life of my Chinese friend and teacher: it is as accurate as she with her small store of English words, and I with my limited knowledge of her language could make it.

CONTENTS

I

Wherein Yen Kuei Ping turns off from the Big Horse Street to make purchases on the Street of Precious Pearls7

II

Wherein there is a wedding and Kuei Ping becomes a member of the family of Chia19

III

Wherein there is a departure from family custom and Kuei Ping goes with her husband to live in Peking31

IV

Wherein a son is born and there is great rejoicing41

V

Wherein shadows throw their length across the tidy courtyard49

VI

Wherein there is deepening sorrow55

VII

Wherein the heart of a woman is occupied with one desire61

VIII

Wherein Kuei Ping prepares for a pilgrimage65

IX

Wherein there is patience and tenderness and understanding and a return to a little home village73

X

Wherein twenty-seven slow years are added one upon another81

XI

Wherein the narrator becomes Kuei Ping’s pupil and is filled with wondering questions and is witness to a dream come true in its threefold parts91