He smiled with a boyish pleasure more beautiful than his beauty, and the little touch of self-satisfaction he betrayed was as far as possible from being disagreeable. He could not help knowing that he was about to give delight, and cover himself with honor in the eyes of these two women.
“Now, mother,” opening a tiny morocco case, “this is the first ring I ever gave any woman. The one I gave Annette was only a diamond of yours reset, and so no gift of mine. But this your good-for-nothing son actually earned, and had made on purpose for you.”
He drew from the case a broad gold ring that sparkled in the firelight as if set with diamonds, and, taking the trembling hand his mother had extended caressingly at his first words, slipped the circlet onto her finger.
“I had no stone put in it, because I want you to wear it all the time,” he said. “Doesn’t it fit nicely?”
“My dear boy!” Mrs. Gerald exclaimed, and could say no more; for tears that she wished to restrain were choking her.
A fiftieth birthday is not a joyful anniversary when there is no one but one’s self to remember that it has come. Just as the mother had given up hope, and was making to herself excuses for his not remembering it, her son showed that it had been long in his thought. The joy was as unexpected as it was sweet.
When she said her prayers that night, Mrs. Gerald’s clasped hands pressed the dear gift close to her cheek; and no maiden saying her first prayer over her betrothal-ring ever felt a tenderer happiness or more impassioned gratitude.
“Dear Lawrence! it was so nice of you!” whispered Honora, and gave him her hand as she wished him good-night.
He threw himself back in the arm-chair again when he was left alone, and for a few minutes had a very pleasant sense of being happy and the cause of happiness. “Who would think that so much fun could be got out of a quiet evening spent in tying Mayflowers round a pole, and giving a gold birthday ring to one’s mother?” he mused. “After all, the good people have the best of it, and we scape-graces are the ones to be pitied. If I were rich, I should be all right. If I had even half a chance, I would ask no more. But the poverty!” He glanced about the room, then looked gloomily into the fire again.