BACK DOOR

the story

　　Writer Hsu Tien-he and his wife have been married for a number of years. They are a happy middle-aged couple, but they find a vacuum in their lives, because they have no children.

　　Mrs. Hsu knows that she cannot have any children.

　　She often stands by her window looking out at a small girl playing .with a kitten outside the rear entrance of the house opposite.

　　The child's name is Ya Lin, a sweet charming girl of six or seven. She is the daughter of Ho Tse-mei.

　　One day Ya Lin sees that the newspaper and milk has been left outside the Hsu residence for sometime without anyone coming out for them. She goes up and rings the bell to call attention to it.

　　Chang Ma, the servant of the Ho family, comes out to call Ya Lin in for breakfast. The servant of the Hsu family comes out at the same time to answer the bell, and the two servants start talking about Ya Lin.

　　Chang Ma tells the other servant Wang Ma, that Ya Lin has no one to look after her, because her parents are divorced, and her step-mother is more interested in mahjong than Ya Lin.

　　Wong Ma returns and tells her mistress about Ya Lin, Mrs. Hsu after consulting her Husband decides to a adopt Ya Lin. To this Mr. Ho agrees.

　　The vacuum in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Hsu is now filled with the sweet innocent laughter and childish patter of Ya Lin, and the three are happy together.

　　One day on returning happily home after a fishing trip, they are greeted by an uninvited guest. Ya Lin seeing the guest, rushes into her arms. The guest is her own mother.

　　Miss Shi, the mother of Ya Lin, wants the little girl to go home with her. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hsu refuse. Miss Shi goes away disappointed.

　　Mrs. Hsu feeling Sorry for Miss Shi tries to match her ott with Ying Tso-tu.

　　The two young persons fall in love and are about to become married, when Miss Shi is injured in an accident.

　　Mrs. Hsu rushes to the hospital to see her but Ya Lin hearing that her mother is in hospital insists on going with Mrs. Hsu.

　　Unable to refuse the girl, Mrs. Hsu takes her along. When Ya Lin sees her mother, she refuses to return home.

　　Mrs. Hsu walks sadly out of the hospital. She realizes that Ya Lin needs her mother as much as the mother needs her daughter and that her love for Ya Lin could not be stronger than a natural mother's love. She suppresses her own sorrow and disappointment and allows Ya Lin to return to her mother.