"Black—with the three-cornered white mark—the priest must see that," he murmured. Then he rose and set his little daughter upon her feet.
"Run to your play, dearest: I must go."
But Tophra clung to his robe.
"Father—I did not finish about the calf. I want it to play with."
"My child, I cannot tell whether or not I can give it to you till I have seen it."
She looked after his tall figure as he strode away, puzzled, the tears in her eyes.
"I want it for my own," she whispered,—"for my very own."
She did not see her father again that day, nor until the evening of the day after, when he came to bid her good-night.
"Father—where have you been all this time?" she cried, pulling him down to her as she lay on her little carved couch on the flat house-roof, where the Egyptians liked to sleep in hot weather, a painted awning on pillars above their heads.
