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The Ancient Allan by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
page 138 of 314 (43%)

"I should have stopped where I was, Master."

"No, Bes. She was studying to be a priestess and my great uncle, the
holy Tanofir, told me that I had better go away. So I went down south
hunting and fighting in command of the troops, and met you, Bes."

"Which perhaps was better for you, Master, than to stop to watch the
lady Amada acquire learning. Still, I wonder whether the holy Tanofir
is /always/ right. You see, Master, he thinks a great deal of priests
and priestesses, and is so very old that he has forgotten all about
love and that without it there never would have been a holy Tanofir."

"The holy Tanofir thinks of souls, not of bodies, Bes."

"Yes, Master. Still, oil is of no use without a lamp, or a soul
without a body, at least here underneath the sun, or so we were taught
who worship the Grasshopper. But, Master, when you came back from all
your hunting, what happened then?"

"Then I found, Bes, that the lady Amada, having acquired all the
learning possible, had taken her first vows to Isis, which she said
she would not break for any man on earth although she might have done
so without crime. Therefore, although I was dear to her, as a brother
would have been had she had one, and she swore that she had never even
thought of another man, she refused so much as to think of marrying
who dreamed only of the heavenly perfections of the lady Isis."

"Ump!" said Bes. "We Ethiopians have Priestesses of the Grasshopper,
or the Grasshopper's wife, but they do not think of her like that. I
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