“Bless you, my ‘happiness;’ I cannot help calling you that, it is so fitting; those words will ring sweetly in my ears all the long months I am separated from you.” He bent and touched her white forehead with his lips, then, with a long, fond embrace, he bade her farewell and went away. * * * * * At half-past eleven the next morning Editha Dalton’s carriage might have been seen drawn close to the wharf near where the great steamer which was to bear her lover across the ocean lay panting like a thing of life in mortal agony. Earle had said he could not come to see her again, but she had resolved to go to see him off instead. She must look once more into his face, and hear him speak again in the tones that had grown so dear to her. Her fair face looked forth from the carriage window, her eager eyes anxiously searching the countenance of each new-comer as he hurried toward the boat anxious to secure his state-room and get settled for the voyage. Perhaps, after all, she thinks, as she looks in vain for the beloved face, she was foolish to come, and will miss him in the throng and confusion. But her heart longs inexpressibly for one last look, and word, and hand-clasp, and she resolves to linger until the last moment. But suddenly her face lights and flushes, and a glad, tender gleam beams from her beautiful eyes. She sees a manly form coming with quick, firm tread toward the wharf. He also is evidently musing upon something pleasant for a smile of rare sweetness curls his handsome lips, and lights his noble face. All at once he lifts his head, and, as if drawn by some magnetic influence, his eyes meet those of his betrothed, and, with a bound, he is beside her carriage in an instant. “My darling! I did not expect this,” he said, with a warm clasp of her hand, his face all aglow. “I could not help it, Earle; it was foolish in me, I suppose, after you had once said ‘good-by,’” she said, with a lovely color rising in her cheeks. “A very agreeable kind of foolishness to me, dear; and I shall take it as a good omen for my journey, that I have had such a pleasant surprise,” he answered, smiling tenderly down upon that lovely face, with its shining golden crown. It was the most beautiful thing in all the world to him. “I was not sure of seeing you, but I thought at least I should see the vessel that was to take you away from me, and that would be something,” she returned, with an answering smile, though it bade fair to be rather a dewy one, judging from the tears in her eyes. “Do you so dread to have me go, Editha? I _wish_ I might have taken you with me,” he said, wistfully, as he noted the tears “something unaccountably impresses me that you will not be safe until I have you within my sheltering care.”