he clothe herself in the gayest
costume of the Jews, and, conscious of her beauty, try with smiles
and coquetry and caressing touch to beguile the King? No. Did she
steal into the tent of his greatest general and kneeling at his feet
seek to bribe him with her love? No. She simply and utterly ignored
the men, and selected the King's own daughter as the instrument to
execute her design. She knew the royal girl came down to the river to
bathe, and trusting in her baby's great gift of unrivaled beauty and
the woman's compassion, she planned a dramatic surprise for her.

"And when she could not longer hide him, she took him an ark of
bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and pitch and put the child
therein. And she laid it among the flags by the river's brink." But
before she put him in it she bathed him in perfumed water to make him
sweet, put on his prettiest dress, tied up his short sleeves with
something that just matched the color in his cheeks, and borrowed a
golden chain of an Egyptian woman to clasp about his milk-white neck.
Then she lined the ark with roses, laid a little pillow in the bottom,
put the baby softly in, partly closed the top to shield him from too
much light and air, and laid it among the flags by the river's brink;
and then the cleverness that had designed the scheme and the bravery
that had executed it so far, was overwhelmed by a mother's love and
she fled, and hid herself among the foliage and the reeds, too
frightened to watch the result; "but his sister stood afar off to wit
what would be done to him."

And the baby had a nice time while he waited, for the wind with
noiseless feet and invisible hands came and softly rocked the cradle
to and fro; the sunbeams sent a bright ray and put golden bracelets on
his wrists, which with the true instinct of human nature he tried to
catch and hold, and the birds coming down to wash in the rippling
waters peeped into the cradle, and, enraptured with the pretty sight,
forgot to bathe, but stopped to sing.

And the King's daughter and her maidens came laughing and singing down
to the river's brink to bathe, as was their custom--a custom which
baby's mother knew about and took advantage of.

[Illustration: "PUT UP HIS HANDS IN WELCOME AND SAID 'AH, GOO! AH,
GOO!'"]

And the girls spied the basket and wondered what it was, and finally
the royal damsel "sent her maid to fetch it." And Pharaoh's
daughter opened it and "she saw the child," and the girls crowde