Mrs. Spring Fragrance has gone to visit her cousin in San Francisco and is treated to dinners and parties given in her honor. She enjoys visiting with all the babies that had been born since her last visit to San Francisco, even though she lost her own two babies, each in their first month of life.

She writes two letters, one to Laura and one to her husband. The letter to Laura details how upon meeting Ah Oi, “a young girl who had the reputation of being the prettiest Chinese girl in San Francisco, and the naughtiest,” (4) she introduced her to Tsen Hing, Laura’s betrothed. The two young people decided to get married, once Mrs. Spring Fragrance assured them that Laura would not be heartbroken at the loss of Tsen Hing as a future husband.

In the letter to her husband, Mrs. Spring Fragrance asks to stay in San Francisco for an extra week so that she can prepare American fudge for the Fifth Moon Festival. With great sarcasm, she also recounts a lecture her hosts had taken her to, entitled “America, the Protector of China” (5). In the letter she urges her husband to discount all of the prejudices that their family experiences for the honor of being “protected under the wing of the Eagle, the Emblem of Liberty” (5).

As Mrs. Spring Fragrance prepares to send the letter to her husband, she thinks about how lucky she is to have such a kind husband. Only once did he not act on her wishes—he failed to give her the jadestone pendant she admired for their fifth anniversary.

Mr. Spring Fragrance receives his wife’s letter, as well as a letter from Sing Foon, his elderly cousin in San Francisco. Although his cousin’s letter is primarily about business, he does add a postscript alleging that Mrs. Spring Fragrance is spending an inappropriate amount of time with Tsen Hing, “a good-looking youth,” and suggests that it is Mr. Spring Fragrance’s fault because he allows his wife “to stray at will from under” (7) his roof.

Mr. Spring Fragrance destroys his cousin’s letter and re-read’s the letter from his wife. He questions whether making American fudge for the Fifth Moon Festival is the real reason she is staying away.

Mr. Spring Fragrance goes outside and sees the young man who had interpreted Tennyson’s lines for him earlier. When the young man mentions that Mrs. Spring Fragrance is due back at the end of the week, Mr. Spring Fragrance saves face by making it sound like he has told his wife to stay away an extra week so that he can have a smoking party. The young man, a journalist, is excited about the party, which he calls a “high-class Chinese stag party” (7).

The young man asserts:“[A]ll Americans are princes and princesses, and just as soon as a foreigner puts his foot upon our shores, he also becomes of the nobility—I mean, the royal family” (7). To this, Mr. Spring Fragrance brings up his brother, who the government put in detention as soon as he arrived in the Unites States, and how he remains there. The young man tries to distance himself from the government policy of incarcerating Chinese migrants by saying it is against the principles of “real Americans” (8).

Still troubled by the few lines of Tennyson his wife quoted, Mr. Spring Fragrance asks the young man about his attitudes toward an arranged marriage. The young man is emphatic that a woman could never learn to love a husband whose parents had chosen him for her. Mr. Spring Fragrance things about his own arranged marriage, and when he writes his wife back to give her permission to stay an extra week in San Francisco, he quotes the lines from Tennyson. On receiving the letter, Mrs. Spring Fragrance thinks that her husband is being “droll” (9) when he included the bit of poetry and laughs. Then Mrs. Spring Fragrance reflects on how she and her husband had fallen in love with each other’s photos before they had ever met, and she wishes she were at home with him. 

While walking to work with Mr. Chin Yuen, Laura’s father, the neighbor tells Mr. Spring Fragrance he has decided to allow his daughter to marry her sweetheart, Kai Tzu. He explains that the young man he had arranged for her to marry, Tsen Hing, “has placed his affections upon some untrustworthy female” (10). Mr. Spring Fragrance assumes that his wife is the “untrustworthy female” who has stolen the young man’s heart, and he is unable to sleep or eat in the four days before his wife’s return to Seattle.

When Mrs. Spring Fragrance arrives home, her husband’s altered attitude toward her troubles her, but a visit from Laura momentarily distracts her. Mr. Spring Fragrance is within earshot when he hears Mrs. Spring Fragrance explain how she introduced Tsen Hing to his new wife, freeing Laura to marry her sweetheart, Kai Tzu. Mr. Spring Fragrance realizes his fears are unfounded. When Laura leaves, he goes to his wife and welcomes her back like his old self, presenting her with the jadestone pendant he had been holding since before he first heard her say the Tennyson lines.