Twenty-five-year old Nora Waln, daughter of a prominent Pennsylvania Quaker family, sailed for China, by herself, in 1920. By train, boat & sledge, she traveled from Peking to Hopei, & passed through the World Gate to the HOUSE OF EXILE, the home of the Lins, who adopted her as their "daughter by affection." The house--a compound in which several generations of this aristocratic extended family lived--had been founded by an ancestor exiled from Canton by Kublai Khan. In six hundred years, no foreigner had entered it. In her best selling memoir, first published in 1933, Waln describes life in the country; within the foreign colony; amongst the intellectuals; within the political factions. She shows us China on the brink of change. Previously unpublished material from a sequel written after World War II & suppressed is also included. Illustrations; photographs.