the case of our young people, Leang's parents hastened to consult the astrologers in reference to a propitious day for the wedding, and the young man engaged workmen to build the house, which did not take long nor cost much.
During all these months the lovers seldom met. For the Siamese young men and maidens there are no moonlight drives and walks, no pleasant tête-à-têtes, no exchange of love's sweetest tokens, during courtship. They are carefully watched, and kept apart as much as possible. But by some of the thousand ways in which love ever makes itself known they knew that each was true to the other, and waited patiently. Meanwhile the bamboo house grew in the hands of the workmen day by day, until the sound of the saw and hammer was no longer heard, and the home was pronounced finished and ready to be set in order for the young couple.
The wedding-day hastened on; the guests were all invited, and the birds twittering among the trees seemed to sympathize with the maiden who had lived among them from her earliest childhood, and to carol joyously, "Come, haste to the wedding."
The little house was festooned with the broad, graceful leaves of the banana and adorned with the tall green stalks of the sugar-cane, symbolical of peace and fruitfulness. Flowers and fruits
