it to my fathers knowledge."

"I heard the wildest gossip in the City of the Dead," said Rameri.

"You ventured over there? How very wrong!"

"I disguised myself a little, and I have good news for you. Pretty Uarda
is much better. She received your present, and they have a house of
their own again. Close to the one that was burnt down, there was a
tumbled-down hovel, which her father soon put together again; he is a
bearded soldier, who is as much like her as a hedgehog is like a white
dove. I offered her to work in the palace for you with the other girls,
for good wages, but she would not; for she has to wait on her sick
grandmother, and she is proud, and will not serve any one."

"It seems you were a long time with the paraschites' people," said
Bent-Anat reprovingly. "I should have thought that what has happened to
me might have served you as a warning."

"I will not be better than you!" cried the boy. "Besides, the
paraschites is dead, and Uarda's father is a respectable soldier, who
can defile no one. I kept a long way from the old woman. To-morrow I am
going again. I promised her."

"Promised who?" asked his sister.

"Who but Uarda? She loves flowers, and since the rose which you gave
her she has not seen one. I have ordered the gardener to cut me a basket
full of roses to-morrow morning, and shall take them to her myself."

"That you will not!" cried Bent-Anat. "You are still but half a
child--and, for the girl's sake too, you must give it up."

"We only gossip together," said the prince coloring, "and no one shall
recognize me. But certainly, if you mean that, I will leave the basket
of roses, and go to her alone. No--sister, I will not be forbidden this;
she is so charming, so white, so gentle, and her voice is so soft and
sweet! And she has little feet, as small as--what shall I say?--as small
and graceful as Nefert's hand. We talked most about Pentaur. She knows
his father, who is a gardener, and knows a great deal about him. Only
think! she says the poet cannot be the son of his parents, but a good
spirit that has come down on earth--perhaps a God. At first she was very
timid, but when I spoke of Pentaur she grew eager; her reverence for him
is almost idolatry--and that vexed me."

"You would rather she should reverence you so," said Nefert smiling.

"Not at all," cried Rameri. "But I helped to save her, and I am so happy
when I am sitting with her, that to-morrow, I am resolved, I will put
a flo