"Your language betrays you; merchants do not speak as you do. Besides, the signet of Prince Remeses, on your hand, designates your rank. I have, moreover, heard you described by one, who will never forget that the first words of kindness he ever received, save from his kinsfolk, fell upon his ears from your lips, O Prince of Tyre!" "Who is he?" I asked with interest. "The lad Israel, whom you assisted in restoring to animation by the well of Jacob the Shepherd!" "At the strangers' fountain!" I repeated. "This little act seems to be known to all the Hebrews!" "Not to all, but to a few," he answered; "yet it will be heard of by all of them; for kindness and sympathy from any one, especially from a foreign prince, is so strange an event that it will fly from lip to ear. Your name, O noble Sesostris, will be engraven in every memory, and the sound thereof warm hope in every heart!" He spoke with deep feeling. We walked some distance side by side without speaking. After a few moments' silence I said-- "Where is the youth Israel?" "With his people near Raamses." "I am to receive him into my service." "He will faithfully serve you, my lord prince. He is of my kindred, and I shall be grateful to you for protecting his weakness. Every shoulder in Israel cannot bear the burden!" "Are you then of the family of Miriam?" I asked, recollecting that the ritual transcriber, in the palace of the hierarch, had also claimed kindred with the son of the venerable Ben Isaac. "Miriam the scribe?" "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!"