youngsters. And as for the women! My wife must needs have a new gown
for the procession, and bought necklets for the children. Of course we
must honor the dead, and they repay it often by standing by us when we
want it--but what I pay for sacrifices no one can tell. More than half
of what I earn goes in them--"

"In the first grief of losing my poor wife," said the baker, "I promised
a small offering every new moon, and a greater one every year. The
priests will not release us from our vows, and times get harder and
harder. And my dead wife owes me a grudge, and is as thankless as she
was is her lifetime; for when she appears to me in a dream she does not
give me a good word, and often torments me."

"She is now a glorified all-seeing spirit," said the basket-maker's wife,
"and no doubt you were faithless to her. The glorified souls know all
that happens, and that has happened on earth."

The baker cleared his throat, having no answer ready; but the shoemaker
exclaimed:

"By Anubis, the lord of the under-world, I hope I may die before my old
woman! for if she finds out down there all I have done in this world, and
if she may be changed into any shape she pleases, she will come to me
every night, and nip me like a crab, and sit on me like a mountain."

"And if you die first," said the woman, "she will follow you afterwards
to the under-world, and see through you there."

"That will be less dangerous," said the shoemaker laughing, "for then I
shall be glorified too, and shall know all about her past life. That