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“You know your countryman Mr. Ingram, I think?” said she.

“Oh, yes; very intimately.”

“If you have any regard for him, Mr. Burton,” such was the gentleman’s name, “I think you should put him on his guard.”

“On his guard against what?” said Mr. Burton with a serious air, for there was something serious in the threat of impending misfortune as conveyed by Miss Dawkins.

“Why,” said she, “those Damers, I fear, are dangerous people.”

“Do you mean that they will borrow money of him?”

“Oh, no; not that, exactly; but they are clearly setting their cap at him.”

“Setting their cap at him?”

“Yes; there is a daughter, you know; a little chit of a thing; and I fear Mr. Ingram may be caught before he knows where he is. It would be such a pity, you know. He is going up the river with them, I hear. That, in his place, is very foolish. They asked me, but I positively refused.”

Mr. Burton remarked that “In such a matter as that Mr. Ingram would be perfectly able to take care of himself.”

“Well, perhaps so; but seeing what was going on, I thought it my duty to tell you.” And so Miss Dawkins took her leave.

Mr. Ingram did go up the Nile with the Damers, as did an old friend of the Damers who arrived from England. And a very pleasant trip they had of it. And, as far as the present historian knows, the two lovers were shortly afterwards married in England.

Poor Miss Dawkins was left in Cairo for some time on her beam ends. But she was one of those who are not easily vanquished. After an interval of ten days she made acquaintance with an Irish family–having utterly failed in moving the hard heart of M. Delabordeau–and with these she proceeded to Constantinople. They consisted of two brothers and a sister, and were, therefore, very convenient for matrimonial purposes. But nevertheless, when I last heard of Miss Dawkins, she was still an unprotected female.