“I should be very sorry not to bid you good-bye.  Have you my portrait?” He handed it to her, and walked with her to the hotel.

“To-morrow she will depart, I may never see her again.  Never!  No, it cannot be.  I shall see her, live near her, feel her life flowing into mine each day.  It must be, I shall droop and fade without her, as the flower without dew or water.”  He went in and found the letter written, sealed and directed to Paris.  He loved the word, since she was going there.

Dawn went to her room and wrote her last letter from the land of music, flowers, legends and art.

“Dear Ones at Home:-To-morrow we bid good-bye to this land of beauty, which so accords with my feelings.  We shall bid adieu to its mountains, its castles, and its works of art.  When you receive this we shall have visited Paris, thence to London to embark for home.  ‘Home,’ dear word.  All my roamings will only make me love home better, and those whose lives are so woven in with mine.  Tell Herbert he must come here to have his inspiration aroused.  When he has walked upon Mont Blanc; when he has sailed on the Rhine, stood by Lakes Geneva and Lucerne, and by the blue Moselle, then he will feel that his whole life has been a fitting prelude to a rapturous burst of immortal song.  He must come to Germany before he can fathom the sea of sound, or understand in fullness what the rippling waves of sweet music are saying.  Florence, Herbert! do not let old age come on you, before you see this land, if none other.  It is growing dark, or I would write more.  Were I to sing a song to-night it would be, ‘Do they miss me at home?’ Three years have passed; I could stay as many more and not see half of that which would interest and instruct me, yet I feel ready to leave, for I know it to be my duty to do so.  May the waves bear us safely to the arms of those who love us.  Yours ever, dawn.”

CHAPTER XXI.

During the voyage home, Dawn was too indrawn to converse much with her father.  He saw her state, and delicately left her to herself, except at brief intervals.  What a help is such an one to us in our moods-one who knows when to leave us, and as well when to linger.

The days went swiftly by.  As they neared home, Dawn’s abstracted manner warmed to its usual glow, and parent and child talked earnestly of the joy of returning to their own dear fireside.  With deepened life within, and extended views of happiness, how pleasantly would the days glide on, lit with the sunlight of the happy faces they were so soon to behold.