When the Regent, who had been a friend of her late husband, removed into the palace of the Pharaohs, he made her advances, and the clever and decided woman knew how to make herself at first agreeable, and finally indispensable, to the vacillating man. She availed herself of the circumstance that she, as well as he, was descended from the old royal house to pique his ambition, and to open to him a view, which even to think of, he would have considered forbidden as a crime, before he became intimate with her. Ani's suit for the hand of the princess Bent-Anat was Katuti's work. She hoped that the Pharoah would refuse, and personally offend the Regent, and so make him more inclined to tread the dangerous road which she was endeavoring to smooth for him. The dwarf Nemu was her pliant tool. She had not initiated him into her projects by any words; he however gave utterance to every impulse of her mind in free language, which was punished only with blows from a fan, and, only the day before, had been so audacious as to say that if the Pharoah were called Ani instead of Rameses, Katuti would be not a queen but a goddess for she would then have not to obey, but rather to guide, the Pharaoh, who indeed himself was related to the Immortals. Katuti did not observe her daughter's blush, for she was looking anxiously out at the garden gate, and said: "Where can Nemu be! There must be some news arrived for us from the army." "Mena has not written for so long," Nefert said softly. "Ah! here is the steward!" Katuti turned to the officer, who had entered the veranda through a side door: "What do you bring," she asked. "The dealer Abscha," was the answer, "presses for payment. The new Syrian chariot and the purple cloth--" "Sell some corn," ordered Katuti. "Impossible, for the tribute to the temples is not yet paid, and already so much has been delivered to the dealers that scarcely enough remains over for the maintenance of the household and for sowing." "Then pay with beasts." "But, madam," said the steward sorrowfully, "only yesterday, we again sold a herd to the Mohar; and the water-wheels must be turned, and the corn must be thrashed, and we need beasts for sacrifice, and milk, butter, and cheese, for the use of the house, and dung for firing." [In Egypt, where there is so little wood, to this day the dried dung of beasts is the commonest kind of fuel.] Katuti looked thoughtfully at the ground. "It must be," she said presently. "Ride to Hermonthis, and say to the keeper of the stud that he must have ten of Mena's golden bays driven over here." "I have already spoken to him," said the steward, "but he maintains that Mena strictly forbade him to part with even one of the horses, for he is proud of the stock. Only for the chariot of the lady Nefert " "I require obedience," said Katuti decidedly and cutting short the steward's words, "and I expect the horses to-morrow."