“I say amen; and yet I say tell all, or none; either way I shall be content. Love’s trust, when full, has few questions and no doubts.”
“Nobly spoken, but yet I must tell all. The image is of Neb-ta, from the country of Hamites.”
“What an odd figure! Her head-dress, a basket!”
“The basket on her head and the little house by her side betoken that she was the presiding spirit of domestic life. I love Neb-ta! She ever reminds me of woman at her best, as a mother brooding her chicks.”
“Praise be the Patriarchs; they left us testimonies which makes it needless to go to Egypt for precepts concerning home-love!” responded the wife.
“But, Rizpah, thou dost divert me! Wait; I’m coming around with the patriarchs, by way of Jerusalem, to Bozrah.”
“Now, that’s a fine parade; I await it,” the woman, with quick reply, answered.
“Tradition says this Neb-ta will stand before Osiris and Isis in the judgment ‘hall of truth,’ where another deity styled ‘divine wisdom’ opens the books of men’s earthly deeds. As the great Anubis weighs them, Neb-ta stands by ready to cut away the failings of those weighed. When the scale of their merit is lacking, she herself leaps into it, to weigh it down in their behalf.”
“A pretty myth for grim old Nile Land!”
“It proves man’s belief that at last he’ll need help.”