e joint fits the socket.
Virtue is essential, but it is not sufficient. Beauty is good--I
should say needful, but certainly it is not all. Love is indispensable
and yet not enough."

"I should say that these three things are enough," put in Kenkenes.

"They would gain entrance into the place of the blest--the bosom of
Osiris--but they are not sufficient for the over-nice nobility of
Egypt," the scribe averred promptly. "Thou must live in the world and
the world would pass judgment on thy wife. If thou art a true husband,
thou wouldst defend her, and be wroth. Yet, canst thou be happy being
wroth and at odds with the world?"

Kenkenes slipped from under the affectionate arm and busied himself
with the statue, marking with a sliver of limestone where his chisel
must smooth away a flaw. But the voice of the scribe went on steadily.

"The nobility of Egypt will not accept an unbeliever and an Israelite.
That monarch who favored the son of Abraham, Joseph, is dead. The
tolerant spirit died with him. Another sentiment hath grown up and the
loveliest Hebrew could not overthrow it. Henceforward, there is
eternal enmity between Egypt and Israel."

The sliver of stone dropped from the fingers of the artist and his eyes
wandered away, dreamy with thought. He remembered the story of the
wrong of Rachel's house, and it came home to him with overwhelming
force that the feud between Egypt and Israel was the barrier between
him and his love. He was punished for a crime his country had
committed.

"Oh!" he exclaimed to himself. "Am I not surely suffering for the sins
of my fathers? How cruelly sound thy reasoning is, O thou placid
Hotep!"

The scribe saw that as the sculptor stood, the pleading hands of Athor
all but touched his shoulders. Hotep went to him and turned him away
from the statue. He knew he could not win his friend with the beauty
of that waiting face appealing to him.

"Thus far thou hast borne with me, Kenkenes--and having grown bold
thereby, I would go further. Return with me to Memphis and come hither
no more. She will soon be comforted, if she is not already betrothed.
Egypt needs thee--the Hathors have bespoken good fortune for thee--and
thou art justified in aspiring to nothing less than the hand of a
princess. Come back to Memphis and let her heal thee with her
congruous love."

"Nay, my Hotep, what a waste of words! I will go back to Memphis with
thee, not for thy reasoning, but for