her
workshop.

"We must both come to different minds," said she. "I often shudder
involuntarily, and feel as if I bore a brand--as if I had a stain here on
my shoulder where it was touched by Paaker's rough hand."

The first day of labor gave Nefert a good many difficulties to overcome;
on the second day the work she had begun already had a charm for her, and
by the third she rejoiced in the little results of her care.

Bent-Anat had put her in the right place, for she had the direction of a
large number of young girls and women, the daughters, wives, and widows
of those Thebans who were at the war, or who had fallen in the field, who
sorted and arranged the healing herbs. Her helpers sat in little circles
on the ground; in the midst of each lay a great heap of fresh and dry
plants, and in front of each work-woman a number of parcels of the
selected roots, leaves, and flowers.

An old physician presided over the whole, and had shown Nefert the first
day the particular plants which he needed.

The wife of Mena, who was fond of flowers, had soon learnt them all, and
she taught willingly, for she loved children.

She soon had favorites among the children, and knew some as being
industrious and careful, others as idle and heedless:

"Ay! ay!" she exclaimed, bending over a little half-naked maiden with
great almond-shaped eyes. "You are mixing them all together. Your father,
as you tell me, is at the war. Suppose, now, an arrow were to strike him,
and this plant, which would hurt him, were laid on the burning wound
instead of this other, which would do him good--that would be very sad."

The child nodded her head, and looked her work through again. Nefert
turned to a little idler, and said: "You are chattering again, and doing
nothing, and yet your father is in the field. If he were ill now, and has
no medicine, and if at night when he is asleep he dreams of you, and sees
you sitting idle, he may say to himself: 'Now I might get well, but my
little girl at home does not love me, for she would rather sit with her
hands in her lap than sort herbs for her sick father.'"

Then Nefert turned to a large group of the girls, who were sorting
plants, and said: "Do you, children, know the origin of all these
wholesome, healing herbs? The good Horus went out to fight against Seth,
the murderer of his father, and the horrible enemy wounded Horus in the
eye in the struggle; but the son of Osiris conquered, for good always
conq