n respecting it was immense. A small piece of German
territory still remained to be crossed, but if no unforeseen incident
arose to jeopardise the situation at the last moment all would yet be
well. The rejoicings of Englishmen commonly take a sturdy and obvious
form, and two days after the great junction was expected to take place,
the _Arbiter_ was to give a dinner at the Colossus Hotel in the Strand
to the representatives of the Cape to Cairo Railway in London, after
which the Hotel would be illuminated on all sides, and fireworks over
the river were to proclaim to the whole town that Africa had been
spanned. Pateley was to take the chair at the dinner. He had some shares
in the railway himself, although the rush upon it had been too great
for him to secure any large amount of them. He had golden hopes,
however, in the future of the "Equator," when once the railway was at
its doors. Anderson had gone back again to Africa, this time with an
eager staff of companions, and was only waiting for his time to come.

"Now then," Pateley said jovially, one evening, as he went into the
lodgings in Vernon Street and found his sisters sitting over their
somewhat inadequate evening meal, "Times are looking up, I must tell
you. I shouldn't wonder if you were better off before long. When the
railway's finished, and if the "Equator" mine is all we believe it to
be, you ought to get something handsome out of it--and I have got
something for you to go on with which will keep you going in the
meantime. So now I hope you will think yourselves justified in sitting
down to a decent dinner every evening, instead of that kind of thing,"
and he pointed, with his loud, jovial laugh, to the cocoa and eggs on
the rather dingily appointed table.

Jane's eyes sparkled and her cheeks flushed with an incredulous joy.
Anna's breath came quickly. What a fairy prince of a brother this was!

"But, Robert, we had better not make much difference in our way of
living at first, had we?" Anna said, timidly, calling to mind the
instances in fiction of imprudent persons who had launched out wildly on
an accession of fortune and then been overtaken by ruin.

"Well, I don't suppose you are either of you likely to want to cut a big
dash," he said with another loud laugh. "At least, I don't see you doing
it."

"It is a great responsibility," Anna said timidly. "I hope we shall use
it the right way."

"Right way!" said Pateley. "Of course you will. Go to the