to and fro with her watering pot between the Watergate that opened
on the river and the cucumber-bed. But sometimes she went through
the gate and remained for a while outside.

Miriam, her daughter, pruned the vines which grew against the
garden-wall, but seemed to direct her attention more towards the
broad walk which led up to the summer palace of the princesses. Her
head moved like the leaf of the palm-tree when the wind blows
through it, looking sometimes towards the Watergate, sometimes
towards the great walk, while her hands carried on her work. As
her mother delayed her return, she went from the wall down to the
gate, and out to the low river shore where the bulrushes swayed in
the gentle south wind. A stonechat of the desert sat on a rock by
the river, wagged its tail, and flapped its wings, as though it
wished to show something which it saw; and chattered at the sight of
something strange among the bulrushes. High up in the air a hawk
hovered in spiral circles, eyeing the ground below. Miriam broke
off some lotus-buds and threw them at the stonechat, which flew
away, but kept its beak still pointing towards the rushes. The
girl girt up her dress, waded into the water, and now saw her mother
standing, hidden up to her waist in a forest of papyrus-reeds,
bending over a reed-basket with a baby at her breast.

"Mother," whispered Miriam, "Pharaoh's daughter is approaching; she
comes to bathe in the river."

"Lord God of Israel, have mercy on my child!"

"If you have given the child enough to drink, hasten and come."