Short Stories
sixteenth Portuguese, one-half Chinese, and eleven thirty-
seconds English and American. It might well be that Ah Chun
would have refrained from matrimony could he have foreseen
the wonderful family that was to spring from this union. It was
wonderful in many ways. First, there was its size. There were fif-
teen sons and daughters, mostly daughters. The sons had come
first, three of them, and then had followed, in unswerving se-
quence, a round dozen of girls. The blend of the race was excel-
lent. Not alone fruitful did it prove, for the progeny, without ex-
ception, was healthy and without blemish. But the most amazing
thing about the family was its beauty. All the girls were beauti-
ful—delicately, ethereally beautiful. Mamma Ah Chun's rotund
lines seemed to modify papa Ah Chun's lean angles, so that the
daughters were willowy without being lathy, round-muscled
without being chubby. In every feature of every face were haunt-
ing reminiscences of Asia, all manipulated over and disguised
by Old England, New England, and South of Europe. No observ-
er, without information, would have guessed, the heavy Chinese
strain in their veins; nor could any observer, after being in-
formed, fail to note immediately the Chinese traces.
As beauties, the Ah Chun girls were something new. Noth-
ing like them had been seen before. They resembled nothing so
much as they resembled one another, and yet each girl was
sharply individual. There was no mistaking one for another. On
the other hand, Maud, who was blue-eyed and yellow-haired,
would remind one instantly of Henrietta, an olive brunette with
large, languishing dark eyes and hair that was blue-black. The
hint of resemblance that ran through them all, reconciling every
differentiation, was Ah Chun's contribution. He had furnished
the groundwork upon which had been traced the blended patt-
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