Qingwen Mends the Peacock-Feather Cloak While Ill

In a great family house, a boy of about fifteen lives in a courtyard of his own with a dozen maids. Baoyu (Bǎoyù) is what the family exists to spoil. His grandmother — everyone calls her Lao Taitai, the Old Lady — decides what he wears and where he goes, and nobody in the house refuses her anything.

The maids were bought young and they are servants, but they have grown up in the same rooms as Baoyu, and the best of them speak to him the way a sister would. Qingwen (Qíngwén) has the finest hands with a needle in the courtyard and the sharpest tongue in it; she will not be pitied and she will not be handled. Sheyue (Shèyuè) is the calm one, who keeps the lamp lit and the peace.

For days now Qingwen has been in bed with a fever that will not break. And this winter the Old Lady has decided to take something out of her own storeroom for Baoyu to wear when he goes visiting.