u mean Pentaur. He was always the
dearest to me of all my teachers, but it vexes me when you speak of him
as if he were more to you than I and every one else. The poet, you said,
was one of the drops in which the moon of your soul finds a
reflection--and I will not divide it with many."

"How you are talking!" said Uarda. "Do you not honor your father, and the
Gods? I love no one else as I do you--and what I felt when you kissed
me--that was not like moon-light, but like this hot mid-day sun. When I
thought of you I had no peace. I will confess to you now, that twenty
times I looked out of the door, and asked whether my preserver--the kind,
curly-headed boy--would really come again, or whether he despised a poor
girl like me? You came, and I am so happy, and I could enjoy myself with
you to my heart's content. Be kind again--or I will pull your hair!"

"You!" cried Rameri. "You cannot hurt with your little hands, though you
can with your tongue. Pentaur is much wiser and better than I, you owe
much to him, and nevertheless I--"

"Let that rest," interrupted the girl, growing grave. "He is not a man
like other men. If he asked to kiss me, I should crumble into dust, as
ashes dried in the sun crumble if you touch them with a finger, and I
should be as much afraid of his lips as of a lion's. Though you may laugh
at it, I shall always believe that he is one of the Immortals. His own
father told me that a great wonder was shown to him the very day after
his birth. Old Hekt has often sent me to the gardener with a message to
enquire after his son, and though the man is rough he is kind. At first
he was not friendly, but when he saw how much I liked his flowers he grew
fond of me, and set me to work to tie wreaths and bunches, and to carry
them to his customers. As we sat together, laying the flowers side by
side, he constantly told me something about his son, and his beauty and
goodness and wisdom. When he was quite a little boy he could write poems,
and he learned to read before any one had shown him how. The high-priest
Ameni heard of it and took him to the House of Seti, and there he
improved, to the astonishment of the gardener; not long ago I went
through the garden with the old man. He talked of Pentaur as usual, and
then stood still before a noble shrub with broad leaves, and said, My son
is like this plant, which has grown up close to me, and I know not how. I
laid the seed in the soil, with others that I bought over