noon
The season was about the close of spring , so Tai-yü got her cough back again . But Hsiang-yün was likewise laid up in the Heng Wu Yüan , as she too was affected by the weather , and day after day she saw numberless doctors and took endless medicines . T'an Ch ` un and Li Wan lived apart , but as they had of late assumed joint management of affairs , it was , unlike former years , extremely inconvenient even for the servants to go backwards and forwards to make their reports . They consequently resolved that they should meet early every day in the small three-roomed reception-hall , at the south side of the garden gate , to transact what business there was , and that their morning meal over , they should after noon return again to their quarters . This three-roomed hall had originally been got ready at the time of the visit of the imperial consort to her parents , to accommodate the attendants and eunuchs . This visit over , it proved , therefore , no longer of use , and the old matrons simply came to it every night to keep watch . But mild weather had now set in , and any complete fittings were quite superfluous .