thought
of losing her child inflicted a painful wound. It was this which filled
her eyes with tears, and sincere sorrow trembled in her voice as she
replied:

"Thou hast required the better half of my life at my hand; but thou hast
but to command, and I to obey." Bent-Anat waved her hand proudly, as
if to confirm the widow's statement; but Nefert went up to her mother,
threw her arms round her neck, and wept upon her shoulder.

Tears glistened even in the princess's eyes when Katuti at last led her
daughter towards her, and pressed yet one more kiss on her forehead.

Bent-Anat took Nefert's hand, and did not release it, while she
requested the widow to give her daughter's dresses and ornaments into
the charge of the slaves and waiting-women whom she would send for them.

"And do not forget the case with the dried flowers, and my amulets, and
the images of the Gods," said Nefert. "And I should like to have the
Neha tree which my uncle gave me."

Her white cat was playing at her feet with Paaker's flowers, which
she had dropped on the floor, and when she saw her she took her up and
kissed her.

"Bring the little creature with you," said Bent-Anat. "It was your
favorite plaything."

"No," replied Nefert coloring.

The princess understood her, pressed her hand, and said while she
pointed to Nemu:

"The dwarf is your own too: shall he come with you?"

"I will give him to my mother," said Nefert. She let the little man kiss
her robe and her feet, once more embraced Katuti, and quitted the garden
with her royal friend.

As soon as Katuti was alone, she hastened into the little chapel in
which the figures of her ancestors stood, apart from those of Mena. She
threw herself down before the statue of her husband, half weeping, half
thankful.

This parting had indeed fallen heavily on her soul, but at the same
time it released her from a mountain of anxiety that had oppressed her
breast. Since yesterday she had felt like one who walks along the edge
of a precipice, and whose enemy is close at his heels; and the sense of
freedom from the ever threatening danger, soon got the upperhand of her
maternal grief. The abyss in front of her had suddenly closed; the road
to the goal of her efforts lay before her smooth and firm beneath her
feet.

The widow, usually so dignified, hastily and eagerly walked down the
garden path, and for the first time since that luckless letter from the
camp had reached her, she could look c