“Fanny,” said Bob Damer, riding up to her, “mamma wants you; so toddle back.”
“Mamma wants me! What can she want me for now?” said Fanny, with a look of anything but filial duty in her face.
“To protect her from Miss Dawkins, I think. She wants you to ride at her side, so that Dawkins mayn’t get at her. Now, Mr. Ingram, I’ll bet you half-a-crown I’m at the top of the big Pyramid before you.”
Poor Fanny! She obeyed, however; doubtless feeling that it would not do as yet to show too plainly that she preferred Mr. Ingram to her mother. She arrested her donkey, therefore, till Mrs. Damer overtook her; and Mr. Ingram, as he paused for a moment with her while she did so, fell into the hands of Miss Dawkins.
“I cannot think, Fanny, how you get on so quick,” said Mrs. Damer. “I’m always last; but then my donkey is such a very nasty one. Look there, now; he’s always trying to get me off.”
“We shall soon be at the Pyramids now, mamma.”
“How on earth I am ever to get back again I cannot think. I am so tired now that I can hardly sit.”
“You’ll be better, mamma, when you get your luncheon and a glass of wine.”
“How on earth we are to eat and drink with those nasty Arab people around us, I can’t conceive. They tell me we shall be eaten up by them. But, Fanny, what has Mr. Ingram been saying to you all the day?”
“What has he been saying, mamma? Oh! I don’t know;—a hundred things, I dare say. But he has not been talking to me all the time.”