Rose turned the knob and removed her hand as she pushed the door open; then something fell with a tiny tinkle on the stone step.  Both stopped.

“One of my rings,” whispered Rose.

Horace stooped and felt over the stone slab, and finally his hand struck the tiny thing.

“It’s that queer little flat gold one,” continued Rose, who was now serious.

A sudden boldness possessed Horace.  “May I have it?” he said.

“It’s not a bit pretty.  I don’t believe you can wear it.”

Horace slipped the ring on his little finger.  “It just fits.”

“I don’t care,” Rose said, hesitatingly.  “Aunt Sylvia gave me the things.  I don’t believe she will care.  And there are two more flat gold rings, anyway.  She will not notice, only perhaps I ought to tell her.”

“If you think it will make any trouble for you—­”

“Oh no; keep it.  It is interesting because it is old-fashioned, and as far as giving it away is concerned, I could give away half of these trinkets.  I can’t go around decked out like this, nor begin to wear all the rings.  I certainly never should have put that ring on again.”

Horace felt daunted by her light valuation of it, but when he was in the house, and in his room, and neither Sylvia nor Henry had been awakened, he removed the thing and looked at it closely.  All the inner surface was covered with a clear inscription, very clear, although of a necessity in minute characters—­“Let love abide whate’er betide.”

Horace laughed tenderly.  “She has given me more than she knows,” he thought.

Chapter XVI

Henry Whitman awoke the next morning with sensations of delight and terror.  He found himself absolutely unable to rouse himself up to that pitch of courage necessary to tell Sylvia that he intended to return to his work in the shop.  He said to himself that it would be better to allow it to become an accomplished fact before she knew it, that it would be easier for him.  Luckily for his plans, the family breakfasted early.

Directly after he had risen from the table, Henry attempted to slip out of the house from the front door without Sylvia’s knowledge.  He had nearly reached the gate, and had a sensation of exultation like a child playing truant, when he heard Sylvia’s voice.

“Henry!” she called.  “Henry Whitman!”

Henry turned around obediently.

“Where are you going?” asked Sylvia.

She stood under the columns of the front porch, a meagre little figure of a woman dressed with severe and immaculate cheapness in a purple calico wrapper, with a checked gingham apron tied in a prim bow at her back.  Her hair was very smooth.  She was New England austerity and conservatism embodied.  She was terrifying, although it would have puzzled anybody to have told why.  Certain it was that no man would have had the temerity to contest her authority as she stood there.  Henry waited near the gate.