“We are so very different,” said Nefert.

“True,” replied Bent-Anat, “but we are both young, both women, and both wish to do right.  My mother died, and I have had no one to guide me, for I who for the most part need some one to lead me can already command, and be obeyed.  You had a mother to bring you up, who, when you were still a child, was proud of her pretty little daughter, and let her—­as it became her so well-dream and play, without warning her against the dangerous propensity.  Then Mena courted you.  You love him truly, and in four long years he has been with you but a month or two; your mother remained with you, and you hardly observed that she was managing your own house for you, and took all the trouble of the household.  You had a great pastime of your own—­your thoughts of Mena, and scope for a thousand dreams in your distant love.  I know it, Nefert; all that you have seen and heard and felt in these twenty months has centred in him and him alone.  Nor is it wrong in itself.  The rose tree here, which clings to my balcony, delights us both; but if the gardener did not frequently prune it and tie it with palm-bast, in this soil, which forces everything to rapid growth, it would soon shoot up so high that it would cover door and window, and I should sit in darkness.  Throw this handkerchief over your shoulders, for the dew falls as it grows cooler, and listen to me a little longer!—­The beautiful passion of love and fidelity has grown unchecked in your dreamy nature to such a height, that it darkens your spirit and your judgment.  Love, a true love, it seems to me, should be a noble fruit-tree, and not a rank weed.  I do not blame you, for she who should have been the gardener did not heed—­and would not heed—­what was happening.  Look, Nefert, so long as I wore the lock of youth, I too did what I fancied—­ I never found any pleasure in dreaming, but in wild games with my brothers, in horses and in falconry; they often said I had the spirit of a boy, and indeed I would willingly have been a boy.”

“Not I—­never!” said Nefert.

“You are just a rose—­my dearest,” said Bent-Anat.  “Well! when I was fifteen I was so discontented, so insubordinate and full of all sorts of wild behavior, so dissatisfied in spite of all the kindness and love that surrounded me—­but I will tell you what happened.  It is four years ago, shortly before your wedding with Mena; my father called me to play draughts.

     [At Medinet Habu a picture represents Rameses the Third, not Rameses
     the Second, playing at draughts with his daughter.]