"By George!" he cried. "She would make a magnificent recruit!"
It was then growing dusk, and the Colonel reminded Betty that it was the usual hour she always sang to her harp for him. Fortescue took the green baize cover off the harp, and Betty played and sang, her graceful figure and lovely, rounded arms making to Fortescue the prettiest picture he had ever seen. She had a sweet, untrained voice, like a bird in the forest, and sang to perfection the old-fashioned, sentimental songs the Colonel loved.
[Illustration: HER GRACEFUL FIGURE MAKING TO FORTESCUE THE PRETTIEST PICTURE HE HAD EVER SEEN]
Six o'clock came all too soon, and Fortescue, forced to remember his duties as host, at last reluctantly rose to go. They were, however, to meet in a few hours at the Red Plains ball. As Fortescue galloped along the frozen road between Holly Lodge and Rosehill, he thought he had never had so pleasant a Christmas day. It was all simple and innocent pleasure, like the pastimes of children, but it was not the less joyous and satisfying on that account. Fortescue came to the conclusion that a great deal of beauty, joy, charm, goodness, and merriment, and even the sublime thing called "happiness," might be found in a little brown house with one sitting-room and one chimney, and on a place with only one cow and one horse.
While Betty was dressing, with Aunt Tulip as lady's maid, for the Red Plains party, the subject of Kettle was under discussion.
"That chile," said Aunt Tulip, "went an' hide hisself as soon as he got offen Mr. Fortescue's hoss, an' when I went to hunt fur him, if you believe me, Miss Betty, I foun' him way up in the lof' over the kitchen, trimblin' like a leaf, an' he wouldn't come down 'twell he see Mr. Fortescue had done rode away. Then he tell Cesar he could milk, an' he tooken the bucket an' went out an' milk ole Bossy as good as ever you see a cow milked in your life, an' he brung in enough wood fur the whole house, an' help Cesar to feed ole Whitey. That boy is mighty industr'ous."
This was encouraging news, and induced Betty to think that Kettle would certainly be worth his keep.
At half past eight, Sally Carteret, in the big family carriage, came for Betty, and the two girls drove over to Red Plains. The ball was a replica of the dance at Marrowbone. It is not often in life that one can live over so much as a single hour of happiness, but Betty lived over a whole evening of joy. There was Fortescue, who claimed her hand ruthlessly for many dances, and his brother officers, who were scarcely less fascinating to Betty, and the University students, who assumed great intimacy upon short acquaintance, and old friends, with whom she had danced at dancing school. And there was the same merriment and the same music--Isaac Minkins and Uncle Cesar with their fiddles, and the colored youth with his "lap organ"--and the same kind of supper, the same kind of eggnog, and the same songs, and the same hearty Christmas spirit. The dance, though, did not last so late, as the hunt would begin early in the morning, and Betty was back at Holly Lodge and in bed by two o'clock. She had warned Aunt Tulip not to disturb herself so early to make a fire for Betty to dress by, but to send Kettle. At half past five, Kettle knocked at Betty's door, and in two minutes a gorgeous fire called Betty from her bed. At six o'clock in the wintry morning, just as Betty was pulling on her gauntlets, she heard the tramp of horses' hoofs under her window. Uncle Cesar had the side-saddle ready, and when Betty went downstairs, Fortescue was tightening the girths on Birdseye. As the Colonel was not there to watch, Fortescue, in the darkness, took Betty's slender waist in his hands and swung her, by the modern fashion, into the saddle. Although it was still cold, the icy grip had moderated a little, and the ground was clear. Betty and Fortescue galloped along in the ghostly darkness, saying little, but with a delightful feeling of nearness and aloneness.