There were three daughters of the Feng family, and when the father lost his business and the mother lost her mind, the three daughters were left to serve others on their own china, long ago sold for half its value to a family of gloating pretenders.

The first daughter married a nice young man from across the way, not a family of any importance but he was a hard worker and that was enough. The second daughter died young, and since no one cared to remember her family, much less her, her life was brief and short and unremarkable.

The third daughter was a pretty thing, and the streets of Beijing were not. She had a little job, serving tea to tourists who traveled to experience the Middle Kingdom and she learned how to blush and hide little pretend smiles behind her slender hands.

There were regulars. A British expatriate who brought her little flowers, and didn't seem to care that her father was a crook and that she lived alone in a flat with two other girls. One day he brought her a dress.

It was not quite her size--a little loose--and it was red and lovely and in the style of the British ladies she'd see on the cover of his books. "Wear this," he said. "And I'll meet you here."

And so the last daughter of the Feng family dressed in the pretty little red dress and the silk ran and her hair fell as the rain came down.