shore with the rest. The plank was drawn away--the captain raised his
hand--the huge steamer slowly moved--a cannon was fired--the ship was
gone.

The sun sparkled upon the water as they sailed away. In five minutes
the steamer was as much separated from the shore as if it had been at
sea a thousand years.

I leaned against a post upon the dock and looked around. Ranged upon
the edge of the wharf stood that band of worshippers, waving
handkerchiefs and straining their eyes to see the last smile of
farewell--did any eager selfish eye hope to see a tear? They to whom
the handkerchiefs were waved stood high upon the stern, holding
flowers. Over them hung the great flag, raised by the gentle wind into
the graceful folds of a canopy,--say rather a gorgeous gonfalon waved
over the triumphant departure, over that supreme youth, and bloom, and
beauty, going out across the mystic ocean to carry a finer charm and
more human splendor into those realms of my imagination beyond the
sea.

"You will return, O youth and beauty!" I said to my dreaming and
foolish self, as I contemplated those fair figures, "richer than
Alexander with Indian spoils. All that historic association, that
copious civilization, those grandeurs and graces of art, that variety
and picturesqueness of life, will mellow and deepen your experience
even as time silently touches those old pictures into a more
persuasive and pathetic beauty, and as this increasing summer sheds
ever softer lustre upon the landscape. You will return conquerors and
not conquered. You will bring Europe, even as Aurelian brought
Zenobia captive, to deck your homeward triumph. I do not wonder that