respectable family, who might be of material service to her.

Thus actuated she commenced an earnest attack upon Mr. Damer.

"Stupendous!" she said again, for she was fond of repeating favourite
words. "What a wondrous race must have been those Egyptian kings of
old!"

"I dare say they were," said Mr. Damer, wiping his brow as he sat upon
a large loose stone, a fragment lying on the flat top of the Pyramid,
one of those stones with which the complete apex was once made, or was
once about to be made.

"A magnificent race! so gigantic in their conceptions! Their ideas
altogether overwhelm us poor, insignificant, latter-day mortals. They
built these vast Pyramids; but for us, it is task enough to climb to
their top."

"Quite enough," ejaculated Mr. Damer.

But Mr. Damer would not always remain weak and out of breath, and it
was absolutely necessary for Miss Dawkins to hurry away from Cheops and
his tomb, to Thebes and Karnac.

"After seeing this it is impossible for any one with a spark of
imagination to leave Egypt without going farther a-field."

Mr. Damer merely wiped his brow and grunted. This Miss Dawkins took as
a signal of weakness, and went on with her task perseveringly.