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[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
After the great excitement of the night Paula had thrown herself on herbed with throbbing pulses. Sleep would not come to her, and so at rathermore than two hours after sunrise she went to the window to close theshutters. As she did so she looked out, and she saw Hiram leap into aboat and push the light bark from the shore. She dared neither signalnor call to him; but when the faithful soul had reached open water helooked back at her window, recognized her in her white morning dress andflourished the oar high in the air. This could only mean that he hadfulfilled his commission and sold her jewel. Now he was going to theother side to engage the Nabathaean.
When she had closed the shutters and darkened the room she again laydown. Youth asserted its rights the weary girl fell into deep, dreamlessslumbers.
When she woke, with the heat drops on her forehead, the sun was nearly atthe meridian, only an hour till the Ariston would be served, the Greekbreakfast, the first meal in the morning, which the family eat togetheras they also did the principal meal later in the clay. She had never yetfailed to appear, and her absence would excite remark.
The governor's household, like that of every Egyptian of rank, wasconducted more on the Greek than the Egyptian plan; and this was the casenot merely as regarded the meals but in many other things, and especiallythe language spoken. From the Mukaukas himself down to the youngestmember of the family, all spoke Greek among themselves, and Coptic, theold native dialect, only to the servants. Nay, many borrowed and foreignwords had already crept into use in the Coptic.
The governor's granddaughter, pretty little Mary, had learnt to speakGreek fluently and correctly before she spoke Coptic, but when Paula hadfirst arrived she could not as yet write the beautiful language of Greecewith due accuracy. Paula loved children; she longed for some occupation,and she had therefore volunteered to instruct the little girl in the art.At first her hosts had seemed pleased that she should render thisservice, but ere long the relation between the Lady Neforis and herhusband's niece had taken the unpleasant aspect which it was destined toretain. She had put a stop to the lessons, and the reason she hadassigned for this insulting step was that Paula had dictated to her pupillong sentences out of her Orthodox Greek prayerbook. This, it was true,she had done; but without the smallest concealment; and the passages shehad chosen had contained nothing but what must elevate the soul of everyChristian, of whatever confession.
The child had wept bitterly over her grandmother's fiat, though Paula hadalways taken the lessons quite seriously, for Mary loved her oldercompanion with all the enthusiasm of a half-grown girl—as a child of tenreally is in Egypt; her passionate little heart worshipped the beautifulmaiden who was in every respect so far above her, and Paula's arms hadopened wide to embrace the child who brought sunshine into the gloomy,chill atmosphere she breathed in her uncle's house. But Neforis regardedthe child's ardent love for her Melchite relation as exaggerated andmorbid, imperilling perhaps her religious faith; and she fancied thatunder Paula's influence Mary had transferre