altogether comfortably. She much wished to have her lord and
legitimate protector by her side, but he had left her to the care of a
dragoman whose English was not intelligible to her, and she was rather
cross.

"Indeed, Miss Dawkins, I don't know who are nice and who are not. This
nasty donkey stumbles at ever step. There! I know I shall be down
directly."

"You need not be at all afraid of that; they are perfectly safe, I
believe, always," said Miss Dawkins, rising in her stirrup, and
handling her reins quite triumphantly. "A very little practice will
make you quite at home."

"I don't know what you mean by a very little practice. I have been
here six weeks. Why did you put me on such a bad donkey as this?" and
she turned to Abdallah, the dragoman.

"Him berry good donkey, my lady; berry good,--best of all. Call him
Jack in Cairo. Him go to Pyramid and back, and mind noting."

"What does he say, Miss Dawkins?"

"He says that that donkey is one called Jack. If so I've had him
myself many times, and Jack is a very good donkey."

"I wish you had him now with all my heart," said Mrs. Damer. Upon
which Miss Dawkins offered to change; but those perils of mounting and
dismounting were to Mrs. Damer a great deal too severe to admit of
this.