Of course we must honor the dead, and they repay it often by standing by us when we want it--but what I pay for sacrifices no one can tell.

More than half of what I earn goes in them--" "In the first grief of losing my poor wife," said the baker, "I promised a small offering every new moon, and a greater one every year.

The priests will not release us from our vows, and times get harder and harder.

And my dead wife owes me a grudge, and is as thankless as she was is her lifetime; for when she appears to me in a dream she does not give me a good word, and often torments me." "She is now a glorified all-seeing spirit," said the basket-maker's wife, "and no doubt you were faithless to her.

The glorified souls know all that happens, and that has happened on earth." The baker cleared his throat, having no answer ready; but the shoemaker exclaimed: "By Anubis, the lord of the under-world, I hope I may die before my old woman! for if she finds out down there all I have done in this world, and if she may be changed into any shape she pleases, she will come to me every night, and nip me like a crab, and sit on me like a mountain." "And if you die first," said the woman, "she will follow you afterwards to the under-world, and see through you there." "That will be less dangerous," said the shoemaker laughing, "for then I shall be glorified too, and shall know all about her past life.