"'What were you saying?' she asked the little one.
"I was telling the others something about my eldest sister.'
"'May I hear it too?' said Tachot so kindly, that the little girl began at once without fear: "Batau, who is betrothed to my sister, came back from Thebes quite unexpectedly yesterday evening. Just as the Isis-star was rising, he came suddenly on to our roof where Kerimama was playing at draughts with my father; and he brought her such a beautiful golden bridal wreath."
[Among the Egyptians the planet Venus bore the name of the goddess Isis. Pliny II. 6. Arist De mundo II. 7. Early monuments prove that they were acquainted with the identity of the morning and evening star. Lepsius, Chronologie p. 94.]
"Tachot kissed the child and gave her her own costly fan. When we were at home again she smiled archly at me and said: 'You know, mother dear, that the words children say in the temple-courts are believed to be oracles.' So, if the little one spoke the truth, he must come; and did not you hear that he is to bring the bridal-wreath? O mother, I am sure, quite sure, that I shall see him again.'
"I asked her yesterday if she had any message for you, and she begged me to say that she sent you thousands of kisses, and messages of love, and that when she was stronger she meant to write, as she had a great deal to tell you. She has just brought me the little note which I enclose; it is for you alone, and has cost her much fatigue to write.
"But now I must finish my letter, as the messenger has been waiting for it some time.
"I wish I could give you some joyful news, but sadness and sorrow meet me whichever way I turn. Your brother yields more and more to the priests' tyranny, and manages the affairs of state for your poor blind father under Neithotep's guidance.
"Amasis does not interfere, and says it matters little whether his place be filled a few days sooner or later by his successor.
"He did not attempt to prevent Psamtik from seizing the children of Phanes in Rhodopis' house, and actually allowed his son to enter into a negotiation with the descendants of those two hundred thousand soldiers, who emigrated to Ethiopia in the reign of Psamtik I. on account of the preference shown to the Greek mercenaries. In case they declared themselves willing to return to their native land, the Greek mercenaries were to have been dismissed. The negotiation failed entirely, but Psamtik's treatment of the children of Phanes has given bitter offence to the Greeks. Aristomachus threatened to leave Egypt, taking with him ten thousand of his best troops, and on hearing that Phanes' son had been murdered at Psamtik's command applied for his discharge. From that time the Spartan disappeared, no one knows whither; but the Greek troops allowed themselves to be bribed by immense sums and are still in Egypt.