broad
signet, on which could be read the name of Thotmes III., who had long
since been deified, and from whom Paaker's ancestors had derived it. If
it were desirable to consult the ring, the Mohar touched with the point
of his bronze dagger the engraved sign of the name, below which were
represented three objects sacred to the Gods, and three that were, on the
contrary, profane. If he hit one of the former, he concluded that his
father--who was gone to Osiris--concurred in his design; in the contrary
case he was careful to postpone it. Often he pressed the ring to his
heart, and awaited the first living creature that he might meet,
regarding it as a messenger from his father;--if it came to him from the
right hand as an encouragement, if from the left as a warning.

By degrees he had reduced these questionings to a system. All that he
found in nature he referred to himself and the current of his life. It
was at once touching, and pitiful, to see how closely he lived with the
Manes of his dead. His lively, but not exalted fancy, wherever he gave it
play, presented to the eye of his soul the image of his father and of an
elder brother who had died early, always in the same spot, and almost
tangibly distinct.

But he never conjured up the remembrance of the beloved dead in order to
think of them in silent melancholy--that sweet blossom of the thorny
wreath of sorrow; only for selfish ends. The appeal to the Manes of his
father he had found especially efficacious in certain desires and
difficulties; calling on the Manes of his brother was potent in certain
others; and so he turned from one to the other with the precision of a
carpenter, who rarely doubts whether he should give the preference to a
hatchet or a saw.

These doings he held to be well pleasing to the Gods, and as he was
convinced that the spirits of his dead had, after their justification,
passed into Osiris that is to say, as atoms forming part of the great
world-soul, at this time had a share in the direction of the universe--he
sacrificed to them not only in the family catacomb, but also in the
temples of the Necropolis dedicated to the worship of ancestors, and with
special preference in the House of Seti.

He accepted advice, nay even blame, from Ameni and the other priests
under his direction; and so lived full of a virtuous pride in being one
of the most zealous devotees in the land, and one of the most pleasing to
the Gods, a belief on which his past