Stretched at full-length on a couch, and playing with a silky-haired
white cat, lay the fair Nefert--fanned to coolness by a negro-girl--while
her mother Katuti nodded a last farewell to her sister Setchem and to
Paaker.

Both had crossed this threshold for the first time for four years, that
is since the marriage of Mena with Nefert, and the old enmity seemed now
to have given way to heartfelt reconciliation and mutual understanding.

After the pioneer and his mother had disappeared behind the pomegranate
shrubs at the entrance of the garden, Katuti turned to her daughter and
said:

"Who would have thought it yesterday? I believe Paaker loves you still."

Nefert colored, and exclaimed softly, while she hit the kitten gently
with her fan--

"Mother!"

Katuti smiled.

She was a tall woman of noble demeanor, whose sharp but delicately-cut
features and sparkling eyes could still assert some pretensions to
feminine beauty. She wore a long robe, which reached below her ankles;
it was of costly material, but dark in color, and of a studied
simplicity. Instead of the ornaments in bracelets, anklets, ear and
finger-rings, in necklaces and clasps, which most of the Egyptian ladies
--and indeed her own sister and daughter--were accustomed to wear, she