"Ain' nothin' 'tall matter wid me, suh, but sumpin' is the matter wid Miss Betty, an' it kinder makes me feel bad."
The Colonel sighed; it made him feel bad, too.
All the afternoon, Kettle sat there until it was time to milk old Bossy, a duty which he had monopolized for some time past. Then there was wood and water to be brought, and all the other duties which Aunt Tulip had devised for him. But when they were over Kettle crept softly upstairs and seated himself on the top step close to Betty's door. At seven o'clock, Betty opened the door that she might call down to Aunt Tulip to assist her in getting into her gown. She almost fell over Kettle.
"Jes' waitin' ter see ef you don' want nothin'," was Kettle's excuse.
The boy's inarticulate sympathy touched Betty's heart in the midst of her own unhappiness.
"I do want something," she said kindly. "I want you to tell Aunt Tulip to come here, and to bring up some more wood, and to do all sorts of things that nobody can do for me except you, Kettle."
Kettle's black face beamed. He ran downstairs after Aunt Tulip, and then began bringing wood, toiling up the stairs with as much as he could carry.
Although Betty was dressed as gaily as usual for a party, and took as much pains with her beautiful brown hair and the wreath of ivy-leaves upon it, Kettle's sharp eyes were not deceived. Something was wrong with Miss Betty.
When old Whitey pulled the rockaway up to the door, Betty came down to show herself as usual to the Colonel. The unspoken pity in his eyes moved Betty.
"Don't be afraid, Grandfather," she said. "I haven't any more cowardice in me than there is in you. I intend to be just as happy to-night as ever I was, and to dance and laugh and sing as I always do."
And then poor Betty laughed a laugh so forced, so full of pain, so unlike her usual rippling laughter, that the Colonel's heart was wrung more than ever. But he knew better than to offer Betty pity.
"Stiffen up, my dear," he said. "Life is full of disappointments. Fortescue is not the man you took him for, that is all. Put him out of your mind."
"I will," replied Betty stoutly, without the slightest ability to keep her word in the matter.
Driving along the hard country road in the wintry night, Betty thought of all those things she might do by which a headstrong, proud, and deeply sensitive girl may inflict pain upon herself as well as another. She would, of course, give Fortescue back his ring that night, and the next day there were to be returned a few trifles other than books and flowers that he had sent her. The ring was a simple thing, a little ruby heart surrounded with small pearls. She had never worn it in public, for fear it might attract attention--people in the country are observant of trifles. But she loved the little ring as a symbol.