the harvests would be great; and the seven lean cows, and
the seven empty heads of wheat, meant seven years of famine, when the
east winds should spoil the wheat, so there would be nothing to reap in
time of harvest and the people would want bread. He told the king that
he had better set a wise man over the land, who would attend to saving
the grain during the seven good years, so that the people would have
bread to eat in the seven years of famine.

The king was greatly pleased with Joseph, and told him that God had
taught him to interpret dreams, and had showed him things to come, and
there could be no wiser man found to be set over the land.

So he made Joseph a ruler over the whole land, and next to the king in
all things.

He put his own ring on his hand, and dressed him in the robes of a
prince, and gave him an Egyptian name and an Egyptian wife, so that
there was no one in all the land of Egypt so great as Joseph, except
the king.

He built storehouses in every city, and stored the grain, until it was
like the sand of the sea, and could not be measured.

In the years of plenty two sons were born to Joseph, Manasseh and
Ephraim, and then the seven years of dearth began to come. When the
people began to cry to the king for bread, he always said,--

"Go to Joseph; what he says to you do."

And Joseph and his helpers began to open the storehouses, and sell
wheat to the Egyptians, and to the people of all countries, for the
famine was in all lands.

CHAPTER VIII.

JOSEPH--THE SAVIOR OF HIS PEOPLE.

The famine reached even to the fruitful land of Canaan, and Jacob,
though rich in flocks and herds, began to need bread for his great
family. So he sent his ten sons down into Egypt to buy wheat, keeping
Benjamin, the youngest at home.

When they came before the governor they bowed down to him with their
faces to the ground. Joseph knew them, though he acted as if he did
not, and remembered his dream of his brother's sheaves bowing down to
his sheaf. At first, he spoke roughly to them, and called them
"spies." But they said that they were all one man's sons, and had come
to buy food.

Joseph still spoke roughly to them, not because he was angry, but
because he did not wish them to know him yet. His heart was full of
love for them, and he was soon going to show them great kindness; but
when they told him that they had left an old father and a young brother
at home, and one was dead, he still act