The first emotion which Mr. Neuchamp experienced after reading this characteristic letter was one of unqualified delight. The sight of the draft for the three thousand pounds, so slightingly alluded to by Courtenay, was as the vision of the palm-trees at the well to the fainting desert pilgrim, of the distant sail to the gaunt, perishing seaman on the drifting raft—the symbol of blessed hope, of assured deliverance. The capital sum, or the trifling annual income derivable from it, in gold-flooded England, might be of little utility there, as Courtenay had averred with the humorous indifferentism which he professed. But _here_, in this rich unwatered level, metaphorically and otherwise, it was like the river-born trickling tunnels with which, since forgotten Pharaoh days, the toiling fellaheen saturate the black gaping Nile gardens, sure precursor of profound vegetation and the hundred-fold increase. No use to a gentleman in England! A company of guardian angels must surely have wafted to him the precious, delicate document across the seas, across the desert here. What use would it not be to him, Ernest? It would pay in full for the Circle Dot store cattle, also for those purchased from Freeman Brothers, leaving a balance to the credit of his account with those treasure-guarding griffins, Oldstile and Crampton. Besides, the bills due to Levison for the store cattle were not due for several months yet. In the meantime rain or other wonders might happen. The young horses, too, children of Omar, fleet son of the desert, with delicately-formed aristocratic heads, deerlike limbs, which had been dear to him almost as their ancestors had been to some lonely subdivision of the wandering Shammar or Aneezah!—they were saved from ruin and disgrace—saved from the indignity of passing for the merest trifle into the possession of unheeding vulgar purchasers, who would probably stigmatise them as weeds, wanting in bone, or by any other cheap form of ignorant depreciation. Saved! saved! saved! All was saved. Once more secure. Once more his own. Once more the land and the grazing herd, the humble abode, the garden, the paddock, even the long-neglected but not despaired-of canal, all the acted resolves and outcome of a sincere but perhaps over-sanguine mind, dearer than ever were they to him, their author and projector. They were his own again. How like Courtenay, too! Ever better than his word; incredulous as to improved benefits and successes; deprecating haste, risk, imprudence; doubtful of all but the garnered grain, the assayed gold, the concrete and the absolute in life,—but, in the hour of need, sparing of that counsel which is but another name for reproach, stanch in aid, generous alike in the mode and measure of his gift. Having recovered from this natural exaltation and relief at the unexpected succour, Mr. Neuchamp turned to the consideration of the very important postscript of his brother’s letter with apprehension.