The days following the picnic had been no easier for Marley than they had been for Lavinia. As he looked back on that night, a fear took hold of him; the whole experience, the most wonderful of his life, grew more and more unreal. Much as he longed to see Lavinia again, he was afraid to go to her home; he wondered whether he should write her a note; perhaps she would think him false, perhaps she would think he had already forgotten her; the idea tormented him; he did not know what to do. He had seen her but once, and then at a distance; the Blairs' well-known surrey had stopped in the middle of the Square, and George Halliday stood leaning into the carriage chatting with Lavinia. Marley had but a glimpse of Lavinia's face, pink in the shadow of the surrey-top. As they drove away she had turned with a smile and a nod at Halliday. The sight had affected Marley strangely. He felt himself so weak and incapable in this affair that he longed to discuss it with some one, and on Sunday afternoon he found his mother at her window with the _Christian Advocate_, which replaced, in her case, the nap nearly every one else took at that hour. "How old was father when you were married, mother?" he began. He spoke out of that curious ignorance of the lives of their parents so common to children; he had never been able to realize his parents as having separate and independent existences before his own. Mrs. Marley laid her paper by, and a smile came to her face. "He was twenty-two," she said. "Just my age," observed Marley. Mrs. Marley looked up hastily. "You're not thinking of getting married, are you, Glenn?" she asked. "No." he said with a laugh. "My goodness! You're just a boy!" "But I'm as old as father was." "Y--es," said Mrs. Marley, "but then--" "But then, what?" "That was different." Marley smiled. "Had father entered the ministry yet?" he said presently. "Yes, we were married in his first year. He had been teaching school, and the fall he was admitted to the conference he was sent out to the Gibsonburg circuit in Green County. We were married in the spring." Her face flushed, and she turned the pages of her paper with a dreamy deliberation. "Ah, but your father was a handsome young man, Glenn!" she said presently. "He's handsome yet," Marley replied with the pride he always felt in his father. And then he asked: "Did he have any money?" "Yes," she said, and she laughed, "just a hundred dollars!" "A hundred dollars! Well, he had nerve, didn't he? And so did you!" "We had more than that," said Mrs. Marley, solemnly. Marley looked at his mother suddenly. Her face seemed for an instant to be transfigured in the afternoon glow. He might have told her then; he was on the point of it, but a footfall on the brick walk outside caused him to look up, and he saw Lawrence coming into the yard. Lawrence beckoned him and he went out. "Come on," said Lawrence. "Let's go out to Carters'."