"In the service of Luxora and Osiria, of Memphis."
"She is my sister."
"I would have said it!" I answered. "Is your father living?"
"He is in charge of the queen's flower-garden in On."
"I know him," I answered.
"It is he who has spoken of you to me, as well as the aged Ben Isaac, young Israel, and Miriam. Therefore did I at once recognize you, when your polished words led me to see that you were in rank above chief pilots and governors of galleys."
"Will you reply to my inquiry? for, as we know each other's friends, we need not now discourse wholly as strangers. How came you, being a Hebrew, to become a priest? Do not you Hebrews worship the One Infinite Maker and Upholder of worlds?"
"There are a few who retain, unmixed with superstition and idol-worship, the knowledge of the one God of our ancestors Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph; but this knowledge is confined, chiefly, to the descendants of one man, Levi; and only to a few of these. The residue are little better than the Egyptians."
"Art thou of the family of this Levi?" I asked.
"I am. We are more given to study than our brethren, and seek knowledge and wisdom. Hence it is, that some of our tribe are taken from the labor of the field to serve the priests. We are ready writers, skilful with the stylus and the coloring pencil, and our lot is preferable to that of others, who are more ignorant. Hence you behold me a servitor in an Egyptian temple!"