Barry ceased reading. He had read all the paper contained. He turned mechanically to the sheet Ned Garrett had laid on the table, and glanced over it, remarking--“it is the same”--and then there was complete silence. It was Leacraft again who helped to restore their composure; “I think,” he said, “that in any event the water connexion between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans is assured. Suppose the canal structure, as it was supposed to be finally at its completion, is all swept away or rendered impossible, an obviously easier access from one ocean to the other is created. If a complete change in the relations of land to water surfaces is now in progress, if Mr. Binn’s disagreeable predictions are now about to be realized, a good many remarkable and not altogether regrettable conditions may supervene. The water-way may become a veritable strait, providing easy, unbroken and capacious connexions between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific ocean--the islands of the West Indies may slowly converge into one land surface, and a new continent invite populations and industries, which the wild, slothful or decadent peoples of Central America, with their hot, fever laden and deleterious climates, could not encourage or support. We may be entering upon a new chapter in the history of the world, and in the history of nations. Who can tell upon what strange threshold we are standing? Let us wait and see. Man is subordinate to and the victim of circumstances. Circumstance also gives him his opportunities. What wonders may not the hand of God work in this marvellous reconstruction of land and water? And if two hundred millions of dollars, as representing the final cost of the Canal, seems to have been swallowed up, what of it? A nation whose annual appropriations--as I only read yesterday--are on the scale of six hundred millions a year, should regard with comparative complacence a loss of one-third of that amount, when it arises from a permanent and desirable change in physical, perhaps human, conditions.” As Leacraft was speaking, the little group of his auditors remained motionless, with--it did not escape Leacraft’s jealous notice--Sally and Brig at its centre, in a sort of mutually consoling contact, and the servants a little behind, in a scrutinizing attitude, anxious through a sense of sympathy with the evident distress of the household.