lt so
irresistibly impelled to pour out an ocean of goodness on another being,
whether for Uarda you would not more joyfully and more self-forgetfully
sacrifice all that you have, and all that you are, than to father and
mother and your oldest friend?"

Nebsecht nodded assentingly.

"Well then," cried Pentaur, "follow your new and godlike emotion, be
good to Uarda and do not sacrifice her to your vain wishes. My poor
friend! With your--enquiries into the secrets of life, you have never
looked round upon itself, which spreads open and inviting before our
eyes. Do you imagine that the maiden who can thus inflame the calmest
thinker in Thebes, will not be coveted by a hundred of the common herd
when her protector fails her? Need I tell you that amongst the dancers
in the foreign quarter nine out of ten are the daughters of outlawed
parents? Can you endure the thought that by your hand innocence may be
consigned to vice, the rose trodden under foot in the mud? Is the human
heart that you desire, worth an Uarda? Now go, and to-morrow come again
to me your friend who understands how to sympathize with all you feel,
and to whom you have approached so much the nearer to-day that you have
learned to share his purest happiness."

Pentaur held out his hand to the physician, who held it some time, then
went thoughtfully and lingeringly, unmindful of the burning glow of
the mid-day sun, over the mountain into the valley of the king's graves
towards the hut of the paraschites.

Here he found the soldier with his daughter. "Where is the old man?" he
asked anxiously.

"He has gone to his work in the house of the embalmer," was the answer.
"If anything should happen to him he bade me tell you not to forget the
writing and the book. He was as though out of his mind when he left us,
and put the ram's heart in his bag and took it with him. Do you remain
with the little one; my mother is at work, and I must go with the
prisoners of war to Harmontis."

CHAPTER XVIII.

While the two friends from the House of Seti were engaged in
conversation, Katuti restlessly paced the large open hall of her
son-in-law's house, in which we have already seen her. A snow-white cat
followed her steps, now playing with the hem of her long plain dress,
and now turning to a large stand on which the dwarf Nemu sat in a heap;
where formerly a silver statue had stood, which a few months previously
had been sold.

He liked this place, for it put him i