“It is a beauty, isn’t it. Let me try it on, will you? Yes, I’ve never had a ring. There, it won’t go over my knuckle—no—I thought not. Aren’t my hands red?—it’s the cold—yes, it’s too small for me. I do like it.” George sat watching the play of the four hands in his sister’s lap, two hands moving so white and fascinating in the twilight, the other two rather red, with rather large bones, looking so nervous, almost hysterical. The ring played between the four hands, giving an occasional flash from the twilight or candlelight. “You must congratulate me,” she said, in a very low voice, and two of us knew she spoke to him. “As, yes,” said Emily, “I do.” “And you?” she said, turning to him who was silent. “What do you want me to say?” he asked. “Say what you like.” “Sometime, when I’ve thought about it.” “Cold dinners!” laughed Lettie, awaking Alice’s old sarcasm at his slowness. “What?” he exclaimed, looking up suddenly at her taunt. She knew she was playing false; she put the ring on her finger and went across the room to Leslie, laying her arm over his shoulder, and leaning her head against him, murmuring softly to him. He, poor fellow, was delighted with her, for she did not display her fondness often. We went in to tea. The yellow shaded lamp shone softly over the table, where Christmas roses spread wide open among some dark-coloured leaves; where the china and silver and the coloured dishes shone delightfully. We were all very gay and bright; who could be otherwise, seated round a well-laid table, with young company, and the snow outside. George felt awkward when he noticed his hands over the table, but for the rest, we enjoyed ourselves exceedingly. The conversation veered inevitably to marriage. “But what have you to say about it, Mr. Smith?” asked little Marie. “Nothing yet,” replied he in his peculiar grating voice. “My marriage is in the unanalysed solution of the future—when I’ve done the analysis I’ll tell you.” “But what do you think about it—?” “Do you remember Lettie,” said Will Bancroft, “that little red-haired girl who was in our year at college? She has just married old Craven out of Physic’s department.” “I wish her joy of it!” said Lettie; “wasn’t she an old flame of yours?” “Among the rest,” he replied smiling. “Don’t you remember you were one of them; you had your day.” “What a joke that was!” exclaimed Lettie, “we used to go in the arboretum at dinner-time. You lasted half one autumn. Do you remember when we gave a concert, you and I, and Frank Wishaw, in the small lecture theatre?” “When the Prinny was such an old buck, flattering you,” continued Will. “And that night Wishaw took you to the station—sent old Gettim for a cab and saw you in, large as life—never was such a thing before. Old Wishaw won you with that cab, didn’t he?”