“I do not know what is the matter with me,” she said.  “I am dying of hunger.”

But her mother began to laugh: 

“That is not a very serious affair.  I will have more rice brought to you.”

But when the young girl said that she needed about ten bowls, the good woman was startled.  She again wished to remain near her daughter.

“If you stay here, mama, I shall not be able to take anything.  Leave me alone, and I shall eat more comfortably.”

Everybody indulged her caprice.  When the cabin was empty, she shut the door and Ya-nei came out.  Hungry as he was, he made the ten bowls vanish like a shooting star, and did not leave a single grain.  Elegant watched him with astonishment, and asked him in a low voice: 

“Is that still too little?”

“It will suffice,” answered the other, drinking a cup of tea.

He hastened back to his hiding-place, while the young girl ate some vegetables.  Then she called the slaves, who came running up, wondering whether she had been able to eat all that food.  They looked at the empty bowls and at their mistress’s slim figure, and murmured as they went away: 

“What a terrible illness!”

One of them, in her anxiety, went to the father and showed him the dish, suggesting that he should call a doctor as soon as possible.  And he, for his part, forbade them to give her so much another time, fearing that she would burst.

At mid-day he went himself to speak to her.

She began to weep:  her mother took her part; and they gave way to her. 
The evening meal was just as large.

They were approaching Ch’i-Chow, and Ho Chang, who was really alarmed, ordered his boatmen to cast anchor near the town.  Early in the morning he sent his steward to find the best doctor, and when the man arrived, brought him on board and explained the case to him.  They then went to examine the invalid and to try her pulse.  The doctor at length came back with the father into the central cabin.

“Well?  What is the illness?”

The other coughed, and at last said: 

“Your daughter is suffering from lack of nourishment.”

Her father was staggered: 

“But I have told you that she ate thirty bowls of rice yesterday.”

“Yet, but your daughter is still a child.  She is apparently fifteen years old, but that is equivalent to fourteen in reality, or even to thirteen and some months.  Her food accumulates in her stomach, but is not assimilated.  From this cause arises the fever which burns her stomach and makes her imagine herself to be always hungry.  The more she eats, therefore, the more her stomach burns.  In one month it will be too late to cure her, and she will die of hunger.”

“But how is she to be cured?”

“First, I shall make her digest what she eats.  Of course, she must eat very little indeed.”

He wrote his prescription and went away.  The servant went to get the drugs, which were dissolved and boiled according to direction, and finally presented to the young girl.