“What’s that, Lavinia?” he asked, and when she stood at his knee, almost like a little girl again in all but spirit, he took her finger.
“A ring,” she said simply.
“What does it mean?”
“Glenn gave it to me.”
“Glenn?”
“Yes.”
“But I thought there was to be no engagement?” The judge looked up, as if there had been betrayal. But Lavinia only smiled. The judge looked at her a moment, then released her hand.
“I wouldn’t wear it where any one could see it,” he said.
The summer stretched itself long into September; and then came the still days of fall, moving slowly by in majestic procession. With the first cool air, a new restless energy awoke in Marley. All the summer he had neglected his studies; but now a change was working in him as wonderful as that which autumn was working in the world. He looked back at that happy, self-sufficient summer, and, for an instant, he had a wild, impotent desire to detain it, to hold it, to keep things just as they were; but the summer was gone, the winter at hand, and he felt all at once the impact of practical life. He faced the future, and for an instant he recoiled.
Lavinia was standing looking up at him. She laid her hand on his shoulder.