“Now, Betty Beverley,” she said sternly, puckering her forehead, “this sort of useless repining is perfectly disgraceful, and has got to stop. Do you understand, Betty? It has got to stop. You have got your grandfather and a great many comforts and blessings, and you don’t owe any money, and you are young and very, very pretty——”
At this point, Betty’s brow smoothed out, her eyes assumed a beatific expression, and her rosy lips came wide open, showing a lovely, elusive dimple in her left cheek.
“It is no use denying it, it is a fact and a very agreeable one, but, as Aunt Tulip says, ‘Beauty ain’t nothin’; behavior’s all.’ Your good looks won’t amount to anything if you are a coward and a poltroon; and you, a soldier’s daughter and granddaughter, with no more pluck than a chicken! Betty, I am ashamed of you. Now, make up your mind to act like a soldier’s daughter and granddaughter——”
And at this moment, Fortescue, whose image had been lingering in Betty’s memory, suddenly came to the front. She saw him in her mind’s eye, galloping past the window, his military cloak around him, his cap set firmly on his handsome head, his look, his attitude, everything about him, proclaiming the soldier. Betty’s smile changed from mirth to one of dreamy anticipation. There is much flavor in the wine of life at twenty.
She went to the window, and, putting her hands on each side of her eyes, so that she could look out into the gathering gloom of the winter night, saw afar off the windows of Rosehill shining with light. On the day after Christmas she would see that young soldier again. Betty made a rapid calculation—it would be just twenty-six hours. At the thought a smile began in Betty’s soft eyes and ended on her rosy lips.
CHAPTER IV
KETTLE
Beginning with Christmas Eve, there was a party every night for Betty, and as wind and weather count for nothing where merry young people are concerned, Betty prepared to go, in spite of the biting cold, and a knife-like wind that came howling down from Labrador. Uncle Cesar was to take her to the parties, in the little, old-fashioned rockaway, drawn by the one horse which was all the stable of Holly Lodge could boast. The homeliness of her equipage did not in the least disconcert Betty.