We continue our serialisation of Anne by Constance Fenimore Woolson

“To Anne, the old-fashioned ring was both beautiful and sacred”

“Distance is nothing nowadays,” said Rast, soothing her;  “I can reach you in almost no time, Annet.”

“Yes, but nothing is the same any more; nothing ever will be the same ever again,” she

Sobbed, oppressed for the first time in her life by the vague uncertainties of the future.

“Oh yes, it will,” said her companion, decidedly. “I will come back here if you wish it so much, and you shall come back, and we will live here on this same old island all our lives. A man has but to choose his home, you know.”

Anne looked somewhat comforted. Yet only part of her responded to his words; she still felt that nothing would ever be quite the same again. She could not bring back her father; she could not bring back their long happy childhood. The door was closed behind them, and they must now go out into the wide world.

The second whistle sounded—another fifteen minutes gone. They ran down the steep path together, meeting Miss Lois on her way up, a green woollen hood on her head as a protection against the morning air.

“You will want a ring, my dears,” she said, breathlessly, as she kissed them—”an engagement ring; it is the custom, and fortunately I have one for you.”

With a mixture of smiles and tears of delight and excitement, she took from a little box an old-fashioned ring, and handed it to Rast.

“It was your mother’s, dear,” she said to Anne;  “your father gave it to me as a memento of her when you were a baby. It is most fit that you should wear it.”

Rast examined the slender little circlet without much admiration. It was a hoop of very small rubies placed close together, with as little gold visible as was possible. “I meant to give Annet a diamond,” he said, with the tone of a young duke.

“Oh no, Rast,” exclaimed the girl.

“But take this for the present,” urged the old maid. “You must not let her go from you without one; it would be a bad sign. Put it on yourself, Rast; I want to see you do it.”

Rast slipped the circlet into its place on Anne’s finger, and then, with a little flourish, which became him well, he uncovered his head, bent his knee, and raised the hand to his lips.

“But you have put it on the right hand,” said Miss Lois, in dismay.

“It does not make any difference,” said Rast. “And besides, I like the right hand; it means more.”

Rast did not admire the old-fashioned ring, but to Anne it was both beautiful and sacred. She gazed at it with a lovely light in her eyes, and an earnest thoughtfulness. Any one could see how gravely she regarded the little ceremony.

When they came back to the house, Dr. Gaston was already there, and Père Michaux was limping up the path from the gate.  He caught sight of Rast and Anne together. “Check!” he said to himself. “So much for being a stupid old man. Outwitted yesterday by a rolling stone, and to day by your own inconceivable dullness. And you gave away your watch—did you? —To prevent what has happened!  The girl has probably bound herself formally, and now you will have her conscience against you as well as all the Rest. Bah!”

But while thinking this, he came forward and greeted them all happily and cheerfully, whereas the old chaplain, who really had no especial objection to the engagement, was cross and silent, and hardly greeted anybody.  He knew that he was ill tempered, and wondered why he should be.  “Anything unexpected is apt to disturb the mind,” he remarked, apologetically, to the priest, taking out his handkerchief and rubbing his forehead violently, as if to restore equanimity by counter-circulation. But however cross or quiet the others might be, Miss Lois beamed for all; she shed forth radiance like Roman candles even at that early hour, when the air was still chill and the sky gray with mist. The boys came down stairs with their clothes half on, and then Rast said good-by, and hurried down to the pier, and they all stood together on the old piazza, and watched the steamer back out into the stream, turn round, and start westward, the point of the island soon hiding it from view.  Then Dr. Gaston took his unaccountable ill temper homeward, Père Michaux set sail for the hermitage, Anne sat down to sew, and only Miss Lois let every-day life take care of itself, and cried on.

“I know there will be no more storms,” she said; “it isn’t that. But it is everything that has happened, Anne dear: the engagement, and the romance of it all!”

Tita now entered: she had not appeared before. She required that fresh coffee should be prepared for her, and she obtained it. For the Irish soldier’s wife was almost as much afraid of her as the boys were. She glanced at Miss Lois’s happy tears, at Anne’s ruby ring, at the general disorder.