There was no time to be lost if they would catch the next steamer for America, which Edward felt it important to do; so within an hour after the funeral they were en route for Paris, and that night found them on board, beginning their homeward voyage.

Zoe in her deep grief shrank from contact with strangers and clung to her young husband.  So they kept themselves much apart from their fellow-passengers.  Edward devoting himself to Zoe, soothing her with fond endearing words and tender caresses, and every day their hearts were more closely knit together.

But she seemed half afraid to meet his kindred.

“What if they dislike and despise me!” she said.  “O Edward, if they do, will you turn against me?”

“Never, my love, my darling!  Have I not promised to love and cherish you to life’s end?  But if you knew my sweet mother, you would have no fear of her.  She is a tender mother, and her kind heart is large enough to take you in among the rest of her children.  You saw my sister Elsie in Rome—­would you fear her?”

“Oh, no; she was so lovely and sweet!”

“But not more so than our mother; they are wonderfully alike, only mamma is, of course, some years the older.  Yet I have often heard it remarked that she looks very little older than her eldest daughter.”

He talked a great deal to her of the different members of the Ion family, trying to make her acquainted with them all and their manner of life, which he described minutely.

The picture he drew of mutual love and helpfulness between parents and children, brothers and sisters, was a charming one to Zoe, who had had a lonely, motherless childhood.

“Ah, what a happy life is before me, Edward!” she said, “if only they will let me be one of them!  But whether they will or no, I shall have you to love me!  You will always be my husband and I your own little wife!”

“Yes, darling, yes, indeed!” he answered, pressing the slight, girlish figure closer to his side.

CHAPTER XVII.

    “Benedict the married man.”
        —­Shakspeare.

Violet’s wedding-day was drawing near and Edward had not been heard from, still they hoped he was on his way home and would yet arrive in season.  Each day they looked for a telegram saying what train would bring him to their city, but none came.

Edward had not written because a letter would travel no faster than themselves, and did not telegraph because so little could be said in that way.  All things considered, it seemed as well to take his mother and the rest entirely by surprise.

He had no fear that his little wife would meet with other than a kind reception, astounded as doubtless they would be to learn that he had one.  But he would have the surprise come upon them all at home, where no stranger eye would witness the meeting; therefore sent no warning of his coming lest some one of them should meet him at the depot.