Three hours after the ceremony the Bloommaert household were on their way to England, and Peter had charge of the house on the Bowling Green. “We shall be back in the fall of the year,” the judge said to his son, “for I have much to attend to in New York this coming winter.” * * * * * The judge kept his promise, but Leonard and Sappha did not return with him. Sappha had accompanied her husband to Scotland, and after his mission to the Highlands had been accomplished they lingered a while in Edinburgh. Here they met an old acquaintance who was going to Holland and Belgium, and they went with him to these countries. Then, the wander-fever being still upon Leonard, they travelled southward to France and Italy, returning to England by the usual tourist route through Switzerland. And, as at that day the facilities for travel were small, and its difficulties and hindrances for travel many and perplexing, it was more than a year before they again reached London, and turned their faces westward and homeward. Homeward! The word tasted sweet in Sappha’s mouth. She said it over and over, and the first sight of the open arms of the low-lying American shore brought happy tears to her eyes. The Bowling Green at last! After so many strange lands, after so many wonderful days in the old, old world, here was the fresh young world, with all its splendid hopes again! The flag they loved, the homes they knew, the people who belonged to them--these things were best of all; dearest of all were the contentful sum of all their future hopes and desires. The great cities, the fairest spots in Europe, were now only as picture books and memories; but Home, Sweet Home was on Bowling Green. CHAPTER ELEVEN _Afterward_ If any of my readers believe marriage to be the completion and consummation of individual life, they will be willing to consider the story of Sapphira finished when she married Leonard Murray. But if they rather believe it to be the open portal to a grander and wider life, they will find the few following pages a sufficient index to a future which they can unfold and amplify from their own knowledge and experience. So that I need only say that when Sapphira Murray entered the beautiful home which her father built for her on the south side of the Bowling Green she could have had no dream of its future destiny. She dwelt there in sweet contentment for many years, and died in its lofty front chamber just before the war of 1860. Leonard Murray did not long survive his beloved wife. He wandered disconsolately around the Green, or strolled slowly in the Battery Park for a few months, and was then laid beside her in that aristocratic little graveyard on Second Street, which, though surrounded by the tumult of the city, keeps to this day its flowery seclusion.