Before life demands of us the exercise of serious duties we have a mighty over-abundance of vigor at our disposal; the child exhausts it in play, and the boy in building wonder-castles with the hammer and chisel of his fancy, in inventing follies.

You shake your head, Septah! but I tell you, the audacious tricks of the boy are the fore-runners of the deeds of the man.

I shall let one only of the boys suffer for what is past, and I should let him even go unpunished if I had not other pressing reasons for keeping him away from our festival." The haruspex did not contradict his chief; for he knew that when Ameni's eyes flashed so suddenly, and his demeanor, usually so measured, was as restless as at present, something serious was brewing.
The high-priest understood what was passing in Septah's mind.
"You do not understand me now," said he.

"But this evening, at the meeting of the initiated, you shall know all.

Great events are stirring.
The brethren in the temple of Anion, on the other shore, have fallen off from what must always be the Holiest to us white-robed priests, and will stand in our way when the time for action is arrived.