White she always remained and delicate, but she grew younger and more beautiful from day to day; she can hardly have numbered twenty years when I bought her.

What she was called I never heard; nor did we give her any name.

She was 'the woman,' and so we called her.
"Eight moons passed by, and then the little Mouse died.

I wept as she did, and as I bent over the little corpse and let my tears have free course, and thought--now he can never lift up his pretty little finger to you again; then I felt for the first time the woman's soft hand on my cheek.

She stroked my rough beard as a child might, and with that looked at me so gratefully that I felt as though king Pharaoh had all at once made me a present of both Upper and Lower Egypt.
"When the Mouse was buried she got weaker again, but my mother took good care of her.