ome. Please walk very
softly."

Horace hesitated.

"Come," repeated Rose, imperatively, and started.

Horace followed.

The night before they had been on the verge of a love scene, now it
seemed impossible, incongruous. Horace was full of tender longing,
but he felt that to gratify it would be to pass the impossible.

"Please be very still," whispered Rose, when they had reached the
house door. She herself began opening it, turning the knob by slow
degrees. All the time she was stifling her laughter. Horace felt that
the stifled laughter was the main factor in prohibiting the
love-making.

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 befo