She shivered like a person in a fever, pressed the child closer to her, and looked round at every one as though seeking for help--and me full in the face.

What happened now was a real wonder, for her eyes were bigger than any that I ever saw, and a demon dwelt in them that had power over me and ruled me to the end, and that day it bewitched me for the first time.
"It was not hot and I had drunk nothing, and yet I acted against my own will and better judgment when, as her eyes fell upon me, I bid all that I possessed in order to buy her.

I might have had her cheaper! My companions laughed at me, the auctioneer shrugged his shoulders as he took my money, but I took the child on my arm, helped the woman up, carried her in a boat over the Nile, loaded a stone-cart with my miserable property, and drove her like a block of lime home to the old people.
"My mother shook her head, and my father looked as if he thought me mad; but neither of them said a word.

They made up a bed for her, and on my spare nights I built that ruined thing hard by--it was a tidy hut once.
Soon my mother grew fond of the child.

It was quite small, and we called it Pennu--[Pennu is the name for the mouse in old Egyptian]--because it was so pretty, like a little mouse.