s curse.
And how beggared was that frugal heart, accustomed to spend all its
store of love on so few objects--nay, chiefly on one alone who was now
no more!

The happy voices of the children had always given her pleasure, so
long as they did not disturb her suffering husband; now, they too were
silent. She had withdrawn the sunshine of her narrow affection from her
only grandchild, who had hitherto held a place in it, for little Mary
had had a share in the horrors that had come upon her and Orion in her
husband's last moments. Indeed, the bereaved woman's excited fancy had
firmly conceived the mad notion that the child was the evil genius of
the house and the tool of Satan.

Neforis had, however, enjoyed some hours of greater ease during the last
two days. In the misery of wakefulness which was beginning to torture
her like an acute pain, she had suddenly recollected what relief from
sleeplessness her husband had been wont to find in the opium pillules,
and a box of the medicine, only just opened, was at hand. And was not
she, too, suffering unutterable wretchedness? Why should she neglect
the remedy which had so greatly mitigated her husband's distress? It was
said to have a bad effect after long and frequent use, and she had often
checked the Mukaukas in taking it too freely; but could her sufferings
be greater? Would she not, indeed, be thankful to the drug if it should
shorten her miserable existence?

So she took the familiar remedy, at first hesitatingly and then more
freely; and on the second day again, with real pleasure and happy
expectancy, for it had not merely procured her a good night but had
brought her joy in the morning: The dead had appeared to her, and for
the first time not in the act of cursing, but as a young and happy man.

No one in the house knew what comfort the widow had had recourse to; the
physician and her son had been glad yesterday to find her more composed.

When Orion returned home, after concluding his business with the
money-changer at Fostat, he had to make his way through a crowd of
people, and found the court-yard full of men, and the guards and
servants in the greatest excitement. No less a personage than the
Patriarch had arrived on a visit, and was now in conference with
Neforis. Sebek, the steward, informed Orion that he had asked for him,
and that his mother wished that he should immediately join them and pay
his respects to the very reverend Father.

"She wished it?" as