hey often said I had the spirit of a boy, and indeed I would willingly
have been a boy."

"Not I--never!" said Nefert.

"You are just a rose--my dearest," said Bent-Anat. "Well! when I was
fifteen I was so discontented, so insubordinate and full of all sorts
of wild behavior, so dissatisfied in spite of all the kindness and love
that surrounded me--but I will tell you what happened. It is four years
ago, shortly before your wedding with Mena; my father called me to play
draughts.

[At Medinet Habu a picture represents Rameses the Third, not Rameses
the Second, playing at draughts with his daughter.]

You know how certainly he could beat the most skilful antagonist;
but that day his thoughts were wandering, and I won the game twice
following. Full of insolent delight, I jumped up and kissed his great
handsome forehead, and cried 'The sublime God, the hero, under whose
feet the strange nations writhe, to whom the priests and the people
pray--is beaten by a girl!' He smiled gently, and answered 'The Lords of
Heaven are often outdone by the Ladies, and Necheb, the lady of victory,
is a woman. Then he grew graver, and said: 'You call me a God, my child,
but in this only do I feel truly godlike, that at every moment I strive
to the utmost to prove myself useful by my labors; here restraining,
there promoting, as is needful. Godlike I can never be but by doing or
producing something great! These words, Nefert, fell like seeds in my
soul. At last I knew what it was that was wanting to me; and when, a few
weeks later, my father and your husband took the field with a hundred
thousand fighting men, I resolved to be worthy of my godlike father, and
in my little circle to be of use too! You do not know all that is done
in the houses behind there, under my direction. Three hundred girls
spin pure flax, and weave it into bands of linen for the wounds of
the soldiers; numbers of children, and old women, gather plants on
the mountains, and others sort them according to the instructions of
a physician; in the kitchens no banquets are prepared, but fruits are
preserved in sugar for the loved ones, and the sick in the camp. Joints
of meat are salted, dried, and smoked for the army on its march through
the desert. The butler no longer thinks of drinking-bouts, but brings
me wine in great stone jars; we pour it into well-closed skins for the
soldiers, and the best sorts we put into strong flasks, carefully sealed
with pitch, that t