LETTER XXV.
Palace of Remeses, City of On.
My dearest Mother:
Your courier reached me yesterday with your important letter, advising me of the refusal of the King of Cyprus to receive your ambassador, or release your subjects; and that you only await my return to declare war. I shall not fail to respond to your call, and will next week leave Egypt for Syria. I have not yet visited the Thebaïd, and the superb temples of Upper Egypt, nor seen the wonderful Labyrinth, nor the Cataracts; but I hope at some future day to revisit this interesting land. I feel, indeed, rejoiced to go away now, as the painful and extraordinary events connected with Remeses have cast a gloom over all things here, and changed all my plans.
But I will resume the narrative, interrupted by the abrupt ending of my last letter. That, with the preceding, as well as this, I shall now send to you, as the seal of secrecy is removed from them, by the publicity which has been given to all the events by Remeses.
To return, dear mother, to the account of the scenes which the magicians presented to his vision, in the black marble chamber of the pyramid.
"I now," continued Remeses, "beheld the excited mother reach the presence of the princess, trying to calm the wild tumult of hope and fear in her maternal bosom; and to her, I saw the princess, after many inquiries, commit the charge of the infant.
"'I shall adopt this child, O nurse,' she said; 'bring it, therefore, to the palace daily that I may see it. Take as faithful care of it as if it were your own, and you shall be rewarded with my favor, as well as with a nurse's wages.'
"The joyful Hebrew woman tried to repress her happiness, and trembled so, that the princess said—