and whether any tie of love
bound her to his uncle.

Ephraim laughed merrily. She who had sent him was so grave and earnest
that the bare thought of her being capable of any tender emotion wakened
his mirth. As to her beauty, he had never asked himself the question.

The young widow interpreted the laugh as the reply she most desired and,
much relieved, laid aside the spindle and invited Ephraim to go into the
garden.

How fragrant and full of bloom it was, how well-kept were the beds, the
paths, the arbors, and the pond.

His unpretending home adjoined a dreary yard, wholly unadorned and
filled with pens for sheep and cattle. Yet he knew that at some future
day he would be owner of great possessions, for he was the sole child
and heir of a wealthy father and his mother was the daughter of the rich
Nun. The men servants had told him this more than once, and it angered
him to see that his own home was scarcely better than Hornecht's
slave-quarters, to which Kasana had called his attention.

During their stroll through the garden Ephraim was asked to help her
cull the flowers and, when the basket he carried was filled, she invited
him to sit with her in a bower and aid her to twine the wreaths. These
were intended for the dear departed. Her uncle and a beloved cousin--who
bore some resemblance to Ephraim--had been snatched away the night
before by the plague which his people had brought upon Tanis.

From the street which adjoined the garden-wall they heard the wails of
women lamenting the dead or bearing a corpse to the tomb. Once, when
the cries of woe rose more loudly and clearly than ever, Kasana gently
reproached him for all that the people of Tanis had suffered through the
Hebrews, and asked if he could deny that the Egyptians had good reason
to hate a race which had brought such anguish upon them.

It was hard for Ephraim to find a fitting answer; he had been told that
the God of his race had punished the Egyptians to rescue his own people
from shame and bondage, and he could neither condemn nor scorn the men
of his own blood. So he kept silence that he might neither speak falsely
nor blaspheme; but Kasana allowed him no peace, and he at last replied
that aught which caused her sorrow was grief to him, but his people had
no power over life and health, and when a Hebrew was ill, he often sent
for an Egyptian physician. What had occurred was doubtless the will of
the great God of his fathers, whose power far su