who had entered the room with her, and Bent-Anat understood the look; she
requested her attendants to withdraw, and when she was alone with her sad
little friend--"Speak now," she said. "What saddens your heart? how
comes this melancholy expression on your dear baby face? Tell me, and I
will comfort you, and you shall be my bright thoughtless plaything once
more."

"Thy plaything!" answered Nefert, and a flash of displeasure sparkled in
her eyes. "Thou art right to call me so, for I deserve no better name.
I have submitted all my life to be nothing but the plaything of others."

"But, Nefert, I do not know you again," cried Bent-Anat. "Is this my
gentle amiable dreamer?"

"That is the word I wanted," said Nefert in a low tone. "I slept, and
dreamed, and dreamed on--till Mena awoke me; and when he left me I went
to sleep again, and for two whole years I have lain dreaming; but to-day
I have been torn from my dreams so suddenly and roughly, that I shall
never find any rest again."

While she spoke, heavy tears fell slowly one after another over her
cheeks.

Bent-Anat felt what she saw and heard as deeply as if Nefert were her own
suffering child. She lovingly drew the young wife down by her side on
the divan, and insisted on Nefert's letting her know all that troubled
her spirit.

Katuti's daughter had in the last few hours felt like one born blind, and
who suddenly receives his sight. He looks at the brightness of the sun,