HER GRACEFUL FIGURE MAKING TO FORTESCUE THE PRETTIEST PICTURE HE HAD EVER SEEN
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.
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.
CHAPTER IX
LOVE AND THE CHASE
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.”