a
plot to baffle the king, defeat death and save the child.

Being an ambitious woman as well as a loving mother, she was not
content that he should be as other children, forced "to serve with
rigor" and his life made "bitter with hard bondage in mortar and
brick and in all manner of service of the field." I presume she
thought he was a little more beautiful and more clever than any child
that ever lived before, for we all do that when a baby comes without
an invitation and often against our most urgent wishes, and nestling
in our arms says, without uttering a word: "I've come to stay and I
want my supper; I'm hungry, for the journey has been long and
dark--and why don't you make haste?"

Perhaps she had caught the fire of the future statesman in his dark
eye; perhaps she had heard the ring of sublimity in the melodious
voice that afterward said "Honor thy father and thy mother." Perhaps
she had seen the shrewdness of the future great diplomat in his
maneuvers to have his baby way, and being a bright woman she set her
wits to work to defy the king, defeat his law and elude the cruel
vigilance of the Egyptian spies; and she conceived a plot which for
boldness of thought and shrewdness of execution stands unsurpassed.
She would not save him to live the toilsome, slavish life of the Jews.
She sighed for all the advantages of the Egyptians. She lifted her
ambitious eyes to the royal household itself, and in spite of the
accident of birth, in spite of king and law and hatred, in spite of
the fatal fact that he was a dark-eyed, dark-haired Jew, she vowed he
should mingle with royal nabobs, laugh and thrive and prosper under
the very eye of his enemy the king, be clothed in purple and fine
linen, skilled in all the arts and learned in all the sciences of the
Egyptians; and she was clever enough to see at a glance that in this
almost hopeless scheme she must have accomplices.

And where did she turn for aid? To her husband, as a meek, submissive
and obedient woman naturally would? Not at all. Perhaps she doubted
the intelligence of his assistance. Perhaps she had no faith in his
courage for the undertaking. Perhaps she did not believe he could keep
a secret; at any rate she refused to confide in him. I suppose, as no
mention is made of it, she utterly ignored him, scorned to ask his
advice, and planned to dispose of his child without telling him of it,
much less asking his permission.

But where did she turn for aid? Did s