ion of love and fidelity has grown unchecked in your dreamy
nature to such a height, that it darkens your spirit and your judgment.
Love, a true love, it seems to me, should be a noble fruit-tree, and not
a rank weed. I do not blame you, for she who should have been the
gardener did not heed--and would not heed--what was happening. Look,
Nefert, so long as I wore the lock of youth, I too did what I fancied--I
never found any pleasure in dreaming, but in wild games with my brothers,
in horses and in falconry; they often said I had the spirit of a boy, and
indeed I would willingly have been a boy."

"Not I--never!" said Nefert.

"You are just a rose--my dearest," said Bent-Anat. "Well! when I was
fifteen I was so discontented, so insubordinate and full of all sorts of
wild behavior, so dissatisfied in spite of all the kindness and love that
surrounded me--but I will tell you what happened. It is four years ago,
shortly before your wedding with Mena; my father called me to play
draughts.

[At Medinet Habu a picture represents Rameses the Third, not Rameses
the Second, playing at draughts with his daughter.]

You know how certainly he could beat the most skilful antagonist; but
that day his thoughts were wandering, and I won the game twice following.
Full of insolent delight, I jumped up and kissed his great handsome
forehead, and cried 'The sublime God, the hero, under whose feet the
strange nations writhe, to whom the priests and the people pray--is
beaten by a girl!' He smiled gently, and answered 'The Lords of Heaven
are often outdone by the Ladies, and Necheb, the lady of victory, is a
woman. Then he grew graver, and said: 'You call me a God, my child, but
in this only do I feel truly godlike, that at every moment I strive to
the utmost to prove myself useful by my labors; here restraining, there
promoting, as is needful. Godlike I can never be but by doing or
producing something great! These words, Nefert, fell like seeds in my
soul. At last I knew what it was that was wanting to me; and when, a few
weeks later, my father and your husband took the field with a hundred
thousand fighting men, I resolved to be worthy of my godlike father, and
in my little circle to be of use too! You do not know all that is done in
the houses behind there, under my direction. Three hundred girls spin
pure flax, and weave it into bands of linen for the wounds of the
soldiers; numbers of children, and old women, gather plants on t