pted son with pallid
cheeks and glittering eyes, but ever ready with a smile and pleasant
greeting, obedience and help. Hiero Glyphic, however wayward and
cross-grained, never had cause to censure this creature of his,--to
remind him that he might have been food for crocodiles.

Manetho's dissimulation was almost without flaw. Even Helen, whose
fancy had played with him at first, but who in time had indolently
yielded to the fascination exerted over her, and even gone so far as
to permit his adulation, and accept in the ring the mystic pledge
thereof (during all the countless ages of its experience it had never
touched woman's hand before),--even she, when her lazy heart and
overbearing spirit were at length aroused and quelled by the voice
rather of a master than suitor, was deceived by forsaken Manetho's
unruffled face, gentle voice, and downcast eyes. She told herself that
his love had never dared be warmer than a kind of worship, like that
of a pagan for his idol, apart from human passion; such, at all
events, had been her understanding of his attentions. As to the ring,
it had been tendered as an offering at the shrine of abstract
womanhood; to return it too soon would imply a supposition of more
personal sentiment. Neither must Thor see it, however; his rough sense
would fail to appreciate her fine-drawn distinction. So she concealed
it in her bosom, and Manetho's serpents were ever between Thor and his
wife's heart. She was false both to husband and lover.

Great Thor, meanwhile, pitied the slender Egyptian, and in a kindly
way despised him, with his supple manners, quiet words, and religious
studies. To the young priest's timid yet earnest request for
permission to pronounce the marriage-service of him and his bride,
Thor assented with gruff heartiness.

"Marry us? Of course! marry us as fast as you can, if it gives you any
pleasure, my friend of the crocodile. A good beginning for your
ministerial career,--marrying a couple who love each other as much as
Nell and I do. Eh, Nellie?"

The ceremony over, Manetho had retired to his study, and there passed
the night,--their marriage-night! What words and tones, what twistings
of face and body, did those passionless walls see and hear? How the
smooth, studious, submissive priest yearned for power to work his will
for one day! And as the cool, still morning sheared the lustre from
his lamp-flame, how desolate he felt, with his hatred and despair and
blaspheming r