"Not rich! How strange it seems to me, to hear you say that! It seems to me that the very poorest in England must be far richer than my mother or myself. All the things that appear to me to be really valuable are within the reach of every one there, so at least I gather from what you have told me; while we can obtain none of them, even though we gave all we had for their possession." "Viewing things in that light, what you say is true, Ella. But you have advantages which few in England possess. You have influence and power over others--" "Ah, I understand, and you will teach us how to use these rightly. I rejoice every day more and more that you have come among us." "And I am not less glad, Ella, believe me." "You!--you glad to be here, Ernest? What! far away from your home and friends, in a wild and strange land like this? You are jesting, surely." "Indeed I am not, Ella. I would not be back in England, if a wish could place me there." Ella would have replied, but they had now reached the spot where they had agreed to assemble, and the rest of the party joined them. It was an open glade, of perhaps an acre in extent, in the heart of a thickly wooded country. For the most part, the trees were not more than ten or twelve feet high, though here and there oomahaamas and baobabs were to be seen, the former towering to a great height against the sky--the latter of enormous girth, sixty or eighty feet at the least--their trunks resembling large columns of granite, in the grey colour and rough surface they presented. It was in the midst of a group of these that the party now assembled; the massy stems and dense foliage effectually screening them from view, though they could themselves see the whole country round them. Presently a distant sound was heard, like that of trampling hoofs, which grew louder and louder, until the elegant tapering necks of a dozen giraffes came into sight, as they raced along with the gallop which appears so graceful until the legs come into sight, and then so clumsy and confused. On they sped, balancing their lengthy bodies anew, as it appeared, every time they laid leg to the ground, and whisking their tufted tails from side to side, as though to stimulate themselves to fresh exertions.