Fortescue kept up an active siege. Every week came flowers from him, or a book, or a box of bonbons, something to remind Betty of his existence. Constantly little white notes were written by Betty, thanking him, and with a word or two of deeper meaning. Betty reckoned, as a certainty, that in the spring Fortescue would return with the officers who were to make the military survey. There would be at least a dozen officers, so Fortescue had told Betty, and they were to have a camp on the Colonel's land, only five miles away, and although there would be much work, there would also be a little play.
As Betty looked out of the window on the wintry scene, she imagined it in the first bloom of the early spring, the leaden skies turned to a sapphire blue, the frozen earth all brown and green and odoriferous, the naked branches of the trees and shrubs were transformed into their first sweet budding, and the silver river seemed dancing in the sun. Betty was a busy little soul, and had not much time for reverie, particularly as she was hard at work on her summer clothes, making dainty little muslin frocks for herself, which she could do very well. But there was a magic hour in her own little room after she was ready for bed, when the candles were out and only the scarlet and golden glory of the firelight shone upon her. Then Betty, in a smart little rose-colored dressing gown, which was the pride of her heart, would huddle against the dormer window that looked toward Rosehill, and think thoughts and dream dreams.
It was, on the whole, a happy, though solitary winter, and a very comfortable one to others at Holly Lodge, besides Betty. The comfort was to a great degree brought about by Kettle. The boy not only picked up chips and made the fires, and churned, and milked the one cow, but was helpful at every turn to Uncle Cesar and Aunt Tulip. The first thing had been to provide him with some warm clothes, and by the united efforts of Betty and Aunt Tulip this had been accomplished. Then, one bitter day, when there was nobody to go for the mail to the village post-office, two miles away, Kettle, without saying a word to anybody, slipped off. He knew that Betty, whom he adored, was always looking for letters, and Kettle, in his little heart, determined that she should not look in vain that day. He was missed, and Aunt Tulip resigned herself to the belief that the boy had run away again, carrying with him a much better outfit than that with which he had arrived. But Aunt Tulip's unjust suspicions were falsified when in an hour or two Kettle turned up again with the Colonel's weekly newspaper and a letter and a large box of sweets for Betty, from a source which she knew very well. Aunt Tulip gave Kettle a wigging for "runnin' off 'thout tellin' nobody," but he was merely admonished not to go again without giving notice. The expedition, however, turned out to be very profitable for Kettle, as the keeper of the country store, who was also the postmaster, had engaged Kettle in conversation, and had ended by presenting him with two shirts of a gaudy pink, and a cap, which saved Kettle's one hat for Sundays.