'Bess, darling,' said George, waking up from his dream. She raised her tearful eyes to his. He kissed them. 'As I kiss away your tears now, my dear, so I will try to take sorrow and trouble from you when we commence our new life.' 'I know it, George; I know it,' she said, and cried the more. 'But that is not what I was going to say. I was going to say this. Listen to me, dearest: If it were not for you, I shouldn't go; if it were not for you, I should stay at home, and be content. For I love home, I love the dear old land, I love mother and father, and the old black cat, and the little house I was born in. And it's because of you that I am tearing myself from these dear things. I am going to earn money enough to make a home for you and me; to make you more quickly all my own, all my own! How my heart will yearn for you, dear, when I am over the seas! But it will not be for long; I will work and save, and come back soon, and then, my darling, then!----' The tenderness of his tone, and the tenderness there was in the silence that followed, were a fitter and more expressive conclusion to the sentence than words could have made. 'I shall say when I am in the ship, I am here for Bessie's sake. When I am among strangers, I shall think of you, and think, if I endure any hardship, that I endure it for my darling--and that will soften it, and make it sweet; it will, my dear! I shall not be able to sleep very much, Bess, and that will give me all the more hours to work--for you, my darling, for you! See here, heart's treasure; here is the purse you worked for me, round my neck. It shall never leave me--it rests upon my heart. The pretty little beads! How I love them! I shall kiss every piece of gold I put in it, and shall think I am kissing you, as I do now, dear, dearest, best! I shall live in the future. The time will soon pass, and as the ship comes back, with me in it, and with my Bessie's purse filled with chairs and tables and pots and pans, I shall see my little girl waiting for me, thinking of me, longing to have me in her arms as I long to have her in mine. And then, when I _do_ come, and you start up from your chair as I open the door!----Think of that moment, Bess--think of it!' 'O, George, George, you make me happy!' And in such tender words they passed the next hour together, until George tore himself away to look after some tools, which he was to take with him to coin chairs and tables and pots and pans with. But if he did not wish his tools to rust, it behoved him not to bring them too close to his eyes, for his eyelashes were dewy with tears.