Strange to say, I felt a kind of yearning towards it, a yearning as of
home-sickness, and it seemed to reproach me for having thought of
forsaking it. I wondered what my friends were doing now within that
blaze; perhaps they were looking at Venus and speculating on what I was
about. How delighted I should be to see them again, and show them my
incomparable wife--but could I ever take her there?

Whilst I was musing, the low sweet voice of Alumion thrilled me to the
marrow. I turned and saw her. She was dressed to-night in a filmy
vesture of opalescent or pearly white, partly diaphanous, and having a
deep fringe of gold. There was a pink blush on her cheek and a sparkle
of girlish love in her celestial eyes. Never had she seemed more
ravishingly beautiful.

"Beauty too rare for use, for earth too dear."

"You were gazing on the star. You did not hear my coming," she said with
a little feminine pout.

"I was thinking of you, darling."

She smiled again.

"Is it not a lovely star?" she said. "We call it the star of Love--the
star of the Blest."

"It is my home."

"Your home!" she exclaimed with a look of surprise and wonderment.