forgot to hang up the charm, and he was found dead in his bed in the morning.
Another Pæony story, which Miss Du Cane gives, comes from China:
Kosei was a young scholar who lived in Kaseikyu, a place famous for its Pæonies. One morning on looking out of his window he saw a beautiful young lady, dressed in white, standing among the Pæonies, which were then in bloom. He saw her there every day, and fell in love with her. Then she appeared to him in a dream, and they promised to love each other; and they thus met every day. At last she told him that she had to go away; and the next morning he found that all the Pæonies had disappeared, and he saw her no more for a long time. But at last she appeared to him again, and told him that she was the spirit of the Pæony. While the flower was in bloom she was a living spirit, but after the flower was dead she was only the ghost. She also told him to be careful to water the roots of the old Pæonies every day, and the following morning he found that new shoots were springing up from these old roots.
The Azalea, for some inscrutable reason, seems to have few superstitions or stories connected with it. I was told in Hong-Kong that the Chinese regarded the scarlet flower at least as unlucky, and that its introduction into the house would be followed by a death. This was then contradicted, and the horrid idea
