"Yes," she whispered, "and think of the long years of happiness!" They stood and gazed, looking down the long vista of years that stretched before them as smooth and peaceful as the white road to Mingo. A subtile change was passing over the face of the road; shadows were stealing toward it, and it was growing gray. The trees that still were green were darkening to a deeper green, but the colors of those that had changed flamed all the brighter. The sun shone more golden on the shocks of corn, the sky was glowing pink in the west, the water-works pond was glistening as the sun's shafts struck it more obliquely. A fine powder hung in the peaceful air. "How beautiful the fall is!" said Lavinia. "Yes, I love it," said Marley. "But do you know, dear, that I never liked it before? It always seemed sad to me. But you have taught me to love many things. You don't know all that you have done for me!" She stood in her blue dress, with her hands folded before her. Marley looked at her hands, and at her white throat, and at her hair, its brown turned to a golden hue by the clear light; then he looked into her eyes. A sudden emotion, almost religious in its ecstasy, came over him. He bent forward. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Do you know how beautiful you are! I worship you!" "Don't, Glenn," she said, "don't say that!" The reflection of a superstitious fear lay in her eyes. "Why?" he said defiantly. "It's all true. You are my religion." "You frighten me," she said. Marley laughed. "Why!" he exclaimed, "there's nothing to fear. Isn't our future assured now?" CHAPTER XIX WAKING Carman was inducted into office the first Monday in December, quietly, as the _Republican_ said, as though it reflected credit on the new county clerk as a man who modestly avoided the demonstration that might have been expected under such circumstances. Marley, in the hope of seeing his own name, eagerly ran his eyes down the few lines that were devoted to the occurrence, but his name was not there, the _Republican's_ reporter, as he felt, being a man who lacked a sense of the relative importance of events. Marley had taken no part in the campaign, though Wade Powell wished him to, and suggested every now and then that he speak at some of the meetings that were being held in the country schoolhouses. Powell said it would be good practice for him in a profession where so much talking has to be done, and he found other reasons why Marley should do this, as that it would extend his acquaintance, and give him a standing with the party; but, though Marley was always promising, he was always postponing; the thought of standing up and speaking to the vast audiences his imagination was able to crowd into a little school-room filled him with fear, and he never could bring himself to consent to any definite time. Besides this, he could not find an evening he was willing to spend away from Lavinia.