rkled in half-open coffers; dishes of
brilliant metal shone on the wall; and a nosegay of rare flowers bloomed
in an enamelled jar in the centre of a small table. But it was not these
details which interested Tahoser, although the contrast of this
concealed luxury with the external poverty of the dwelling had at first
somewhat surprised her. Her attention was irresistibly attracted by
another object.

On a low platform covered with matting was a marvellously beautiful
woman of an unknown race. She was fairer than any of the maids of Egypt,
as white as milk, as white as a lily, as white as the ewes which have
just been washed. Her eyebrows were curved like ebony bows, and their
points met at the root of the thin, aquiline nose, the nostrils of which
were as rosy as the interior of a shell; her eyes were like doves' eyes,
bright and languorous; her lips were like two bands of purple, and as
they parted showed rows of pearls; her hair hung on either side of her
rosy cheeks in black, lustrous locks like two bunches of ripe grapes.
Earrings shimmered in her ears, and necklaces of golden plates inlaid
with silver sparkled around a neck that was round and polished like an
alabaster column. Her dress was peculiar. It consisted of a full tunic
embroidered with stripes and symmetrical designs of various colours,
falling from her shoulders half-way down her legs and leaving her arms
free and bare.

The young Hebrew sat down by her on the matting, and spoke to her words
which Tahoser could not understand, but the meaning of which she
unfortunately guessed too well; for Poeri and Ra'hel spoke in the
language of their country, so sweet to the exile and captive. Yet hope
dies hard in the loving breast.

"Perhaps it is his sister," said Tahoser, "and he goes to see her in
secret, being unwilling that it should be known that he belongs to that
enslaved race."

Then she put her eye to the crevice and listened with painful and
intense attention to the harmonious and rhythmic language, every
syllable of which held a secret which she would have given her life to
learn, and which sounded in her ears vague, swift, and unmeaning like
the wind in the leaves and the water on the bank.

"She is very beautiful for a sister," she murmured, as she cast a
jealous glance upon the strange and charming face with its red lips and
its pale complexion that was set off by ornaments of exotic shapes, and
the beauty of which had something fatally myster