Autumn with its crystalline days and frosty nights gave Betsy glorious views from her windows, but played havoc with her garden.

Hiram had long ago put up his boat, and now he began building a small launch that Irving Bruce had ordered for the following season.

With Thanksgiving Day came Rosalie. Hiram brought her home from the station in high satisfaction, and it seemed as if Betsy could never hear enough of her pleasant work in the school.

“I’m bein’ awful mean and selfish,” announced Betsy. “I haven’t asked one person to dinner with us. Seems if we couldn’t share our little girl with anybody else to-day.”

“Yes,” said Hiram, “seems if some special dispensation o’ common sense had been given Betsy, for our benefit, Rosalie. I’ll have ye know I keep an asylum. Never know any day I come home to dinner who I’ll find here. They get their Thanksgivin’ three hundred and sixty-four days a year. I maintain we deserve the sixty-fifth.”

“Don’t be such a goose, Hiram,” laughed his wife. “This is all ’cause Mrs. Pogram wanted to see you to-day, Rosalie. I told her you were comin’ for the whole Christmas vacation, and she should see you then.”

During dinner Rosalie told many things about the school and her work, and afterward the trio sat around an open fire while the first snow of the season flung its stars upon the window-panes.

“Do you hear from any o’ the Boston folks?” asked Betsy.

“Yes, I have, once or twice. I must show you some pictures I brought. They’re in my suit-case.”

Rosalie ran upstairs to the cold little white room.

“Do you know, Betsy,” said Hiram, as he sat in a corner where the smoke from his pipe curled up the chimney with that of the blazing logs, “do you know I used to think last summer Irvin’ Bruce was as set on Rosalie as I am on you. I minded my own business, but I wasn’t blind; and b’gosh I was surprised that he let her teach school this winter. D’ye s’pose she could ’a’ given him the mitten?”

“No, I don’t, Hiram. Pshaw! You know how young men tag after a pretty girl who can sing and dance and cut up and amuse ’em. When it comes to marryin’, folks like the Bruces want some one in their own set. Mr. Irving—”

“Here they are,” said Rosalie, returning. “Irving Bruce had some of our kodaks enlarged. He said I might keep these, so I brought them. I knew Captain Salter would like to see himself as others see him.”

The Clever Betsy was indeed immortalized. There were pictures of her exterior and interior; and her captain held his pipe in his hand as he looked upon the excellent likenesses of himself and his passengers. Gay, smiling pictures they were, except for his own dark countenance; and in each photograph in which Irving Bruce appeared, he was next to Rosalie.

The captain gave his wife a look of which she was conscious, but which she refused to receive.

“Set be hanged,” he muttered to himself.

“What?” asked Rosalie. “Aren’t they good? I’m going to leave one of them with you and Betsy. Now, choose.”

“This one, then!” returned the captain.

In it Rosalie had one knee on the seat. Her wavy hair was flying in a halo, and she was laughing. Close behind her was Irving Bruce. He was standing, his arm outstretched in some gesture.

“That isn’t my choice,” said Betsy. “I’d rather have this.”

She picked up a photograph of the Clever Betsy under full sail. Gallantly she was breasting a high sea.

“Why in the world!” objected Hiram; and she caught his eyes with an expression he seldom saw.

“Don’t you want the children?” he began.

She smiled a little. “I’ve no objection to the children,” she answered, “but I want—the boat.”

Hiram gazed at her with slow comprehension, then he dropped the photographs and smoothed his wife’s hair as she bent over her choice.

“That’s right,” he said radiantly. “That’s your story, Rosalie,” handing a photograph to her. “This is ours.”

The girl looked at the pair, wondering, and wistful. She had not learned that the heart is never old.

“Tell us more news from Boston,” said Betsy when they were again settled around the fire, Rosalie on a low stool pressed close to her side.

“It is all pleasant. I had such an amusing letter from Nixie. He says Helen is swimming to the top of the social wave, that his mother is busier than a hen with one chicken, and that he himself sobs heavily in corners owing to her neglect. He says the Bruce household is serene, all but Miss Frost, who is too happy to be serene. If she has one drive a week with Mrs. Bruce in her electric, he says she talks about her cousin’s generosity the next six days. Nixie says Mrs. Bruce seems really ashamed to complain of anything—”

“There,” interpolated Betsy gladly; “it’s workin’.”

“Yes,” said Rosalie, “such a cheery little woman is a sermon. It makes me think of some verses I have seen:—

“That’s gospel, that is,” remarked Hiram. “You learn that, Betsy, and say it to me every time you plan to have Mrs. Pogram to dinner.”

Rosalie went back to her school-work with good courage, refreshed by the visit to her friends. Early in December she received a formal but kind note from Mrs. Nixon asking her to spend the Christmas holidays with her.

She smiled as she read it. Mr. Derwent was behind the invitation, she knew, and Robert reinforced it by one of his hare-brained but hearty epistles, begging her to accept, and promising her a luridly enthralling experience.

She was glad she could tell them that her promise was given to Betsy for the holidays. There would be a strange pleasure, she thought, in seeing her summer playground in the embrace of winter. The starry Thanksgiving snow had vanished by morning; but now, Betsy said, the great rock near the cottage looked like a giant’s wedding-cake.

The weeks wore on, and the evergreen time drew near. On Christmas morning Rosalie wakened in her white room under the eaves of the Salter house. It had been furnished with an air-tight stove in honor of her visit, and Betsy came in early to make a roaring fire.

“Merry Christmas, Betsy!” cried the girl, sitting up.

“It will be, child,” returned Betsy, “with you for a treat.” She kissed her guest. “You look like Aurora,” she added, in irrepressible admiration of the girl’s soft coloring in the white couch. “I know, ’cause I saw her picture in Europe till I knew her as well as anybody in the family album. To think you might have waked up in the Nixon house this mornin’! You could ’a’ run around in automobiles, and danced, and had a real girl’s good time; and here you are, mewed up with two homespun folks like us, in a snow-bank, with the ocean for a front yard, black enough to bite you! I felt guilty when I waked up. Honestly, I did.”

“Well, stop it, Betsy. This is the one place in the world I want to be these holidays. Do you believe me?”

Betsy shook her head. “It seems too good to be true; but your eyes do look as if you meant it. Here’s a big can o’ hot water, dear, and when you come down, I’ll give you some buckwheat cakes as good as you ever tasted.”

Betsy had maligned the landscape. Rosalie looked out on spotless snow, but all the trees visible along the village street were cased in ice. Every twig sparkled as the sun gained dominion over the sullen sea, and shone on the dazzling, mammoth wedding-cake.

The week passed quickly and happily. Mrs. Pogram gave a dinner for the Salters and their guest, after Loomis and his fiancÉe had returned to Portland. Captain Salter made Rosalie recite to him the verses in praise of happiness, all the time he was marching to the function.

It was a season of content. Betsy could not doubt it as she looked at the deepening roses in the girl’s cheeks, and the way her eyes sparkled as she came into the house, stamping the snow from her boots, on the return from some errand with Hiram.

Mr. Beebe, learning of her presence, took the biggest sleigh from the inn stable and gave them a long exhilarating ride into the country, and an oyster supper when they returned.

On the last evening of the year Rosalie sat before the open fire with Betsy. Captain Salter had gone out on some errand in the village, and Rosalie, on her favorite little stool, leaned her head against Betsy’s knee and watched the leaping flames. How remote, on an evening like this, seemed the great world from this little cottage-by-the-sea!

“One has so much time here, to think, Betsy,” said the girl.

The other gave her one-sided smile. “Well, yes,—holidays, we do,” she rejoined.

“You are always busy,” admitted Rosalie. “How happy you and the captain are!”

“We think we couldn’t be happier,” returned Betsy. “It’s been a wonderful year for both you and me, Rosalie.”

“Yes, it has,” returned the girl dreamily. “A year ago to-night—No! I must forget all that.”

Betsy patted her shoulder. “Yesterday is dead,” she said quietly.

Rosalie’s eyes lifted slowly to the other’s face.

“Not all the yesterdays,” she said, and looked back at the fire.

Betsy continued to pat her. The good woman reflected concerning Irving Bruce with an effort at self-control and fairness; but a great longing that this girl should have her heart’s desire passed over her like a wave.

A crunching of the snow sounded without. If Rosalie had been intending to confide in her, the chance was lost. For the first time Betsy regretted to hear her husband’s step.

“There’s Captain Salter,” said Rosalie.

The door opened. “Come in and get dry,” said Betsy, without looking around. She felt compunction for her momentary disloyalty.

“Thanks, I don’t care if I do.”

The women both started and turned. Irving Bruce stood there, his broad shoulders sparkling with snow. He set down his suit-case and stamped his feet. “You’ll have to build a porte-cochÈre, Betsy. The hack dumped me at the back fence.”

The firelight fell on Rosalie as she stood, flushing.

“Mr. Irving, dear!” cried Betsy, flying at him, considerations of hostess and friend stumbling over one another in the sudden chaos of her mind. “What does this mean?”

“I just thought I’d run down and see the New Year in with you. Where are your manners, Rosalie? You might say you’re glad to see me.”

Betsy saw his eyes and rejoiced.

“Of course I am,” returned the girl, “but we country people aren’t used to shocks.”

He left his fur-lined overcoat in Betsy’s arms, unconscious that he was burdening her; and she clasped it to her breast as if it had been part of himself. Her boy and her girl! Her boy and her girl! And they were standing there, their hands clasping, and their eyes meeting.

Irving had not taken the uninteresting journey from Boston, and ploughed through the Fairport snow to see the New Year in with her. He had not broken away from the holiday gayeties of which Betsy had experience, to visit herself and Hiram in their snow-drift. Betsy’s heart exulted, and her cheeks were red.

“Sit up to the fire, Mr. Irving. I’m goin’ to make you some coffee,” she said.

“I didn’t ask if you had any room for me, but a blizzard seems to be starting. I can’t go to the inn, now.”

“I guess I can put you somewhere. If you don’t like the accommodations you can sit up all night. There’s plenty o’ logs in the wood-box.”

“I rather think I should like that. Have to see the New Year in, anyway. No use making two bites of a cherry.”

Just as the coffee was being poured, Captain Salter came in. “My, but that smells good!” he said; then, perceiving the new-comer—“Irvin’ Bruce, is that you?” he roared jovially. “Well, you’re a good one. You’ll be disappointed though. I haven’t got the boat far enough along yet for you to tell anything about it. I know you said you’d run up here, but I calc’lated to let you know when.”

“Too bad,” returned Irving. “I hope you don’t mind my coming, though.”

“Tickled to death, tickled to death,” responded Hiram, receiving his coffee from his wife’s hand and with it a look which made him blink once or twice in doubt.

“See the New Year in? Yes indeed,” he cried in answer to Irving’s explanation of his presence. “That’s just what we’ll do. I haven’t set up in years; but we’ll just sit around this fire, and tell yarns—”

“Hiram Salter,” said his wife, “if you think for one minute that we’re goin’ to do any such thing, I don’t. I’ve got to get up and get the breakfast, and you’ve got to get up and build fires. As if we couldn’t trust the New Year to come in respectably; and if you can’t, why, Rosalie and Mr. Irving will attend to it.”

The captain looked at her, astonished. Under cover of removing the cups and saucers to the kitchen, he spoke low to his consort. “Go to bed?” he asked. “Where’s your politeness, Betsy?”

“Where’s your common sense, Hiram Salter! You think Irving Bruce has ploughed down here to talk boats with you?”

Hiram scratched his head, and his eyes widened. “Why, I said that very thing to you the other night,” he protested, “and you said—”

“Never mind what I said! Just get upstairs as quick as you can.”

“Come with me, Mr. Irving,” said Betsy, returning to the living-room. “Here’s a little closet where you can’t much more’n turn around, but I guess you’ll sleep well. It’s a feather-bed.”

They stood alone in the chamber, and he closed the door and took her by the shoulders in the old familiar way.

“You remember our talk one night in the garden?” he asked.

“Yes, as if it was yesterday,” she answered.

“Do you apologize?”

“No,” she laughed.

“I think you poisoned the mind of the party of the second part. Confess if you did. I mean it; for if you didn’t, I’ve broken three engagements, and traveled all day for nothing.”

“Yes—I—did!” returned Betsy boldly.

“Do you apologize?”

“Not a bit of it.”

They looked at each other in the dusk. “Well, are you glad I came?”

“If you hadn’t, Mr. Irving,” replied Betsy slowly, “I don’t know but I’d ’a’ given back the silver!”

Irving pressed her hands and laughed.

In a little while the Salters said good-night to their guests. “You can see, Irvin’, whether I’m hen-pecked,” said the captain meekly, as he mounted the stairs.

“You’re an awful warning,” replied Irving.

“Would it do any harm,” asked Hiram in a stage-whisper when they reached their room, “if I should yell down to ’em to look out the window and see the weddin’-cake?”

Betsy locked the door.

Rosalie was sitting passive on her stool by the fire. A rich color mantled in her cheeks, but eyes and lips were grave. She was regaining self-possession. Perhaps Irving had indeed come on account of the boat.

He seated himself in the chair Betsy had vacated, and watched the firelight play on Rosalie’s hair.

“How do you suppose it looks in the canyon to-night?” he asked, after a silence.

She shook her head. “I’m glad we can’t see.”

“And I,” he agreed. “I have it here.” He touched his breast.

“Tell me about Nixie, and Helen,” said Rosalie with sudden brightness.

“Time enough for that next year,” returned Irving. He laid his watch on his knee; and for a minute they both watched the tiny second-hand, inexorably hurrying.

“How quiet it is!” he said. “What a place for the year to die. I have a kindness for this old year, Rosalie. I should dread to see it go if I didn’t have such hopes for the new.”

“Yes, your business prospects are brilliant, Mr. Derwent told me once.”

“Betsy Foster,” said Irving slowly, “‘Clever Betsy,’ that deep, dark, deceitful, and designing woman who is upstairs now, wide-awake, wondering what I am saying to you, talked to you once about me, and told you to remember that men were deceivers ever. She warned you against me. She’s given me an up-hill pull all summer.”

Rosalie’s heart fluttered wildly.

“I wasn’t sure until I had been back in Boston for weeks that I loved you; but I suspected it. I know that I have nothing more than a fair chance, if I have that; but I’m sure now, Rosalie, that you are the one woman in the world for me. You’re the combination of everything I ever admired in any girl. If there is no one that has a better right, give me the chance to win you. I’ve come here to ask you that.”

She sat so immovable that Irving stooped forward. The face she lifted had the darkening eyes, the trembling lips, that Betsy had seen.

“When you caught me from the cliff,” she said, “I felt your heart beat. The sunrise in the canyon was the sunrise of my life. Every pulse of my heart since that morning has beaten with the pulse of yours.”

He looked at her, wonder, incredulity, joy, holding him motionless for a space; then in the still, snow-bound cottage, golden with firelight, Rosalie’s lover took her in his arms. “My dove!” he murmured.

[403]
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“An especially natural and breezy college girl’s story.”—Baltimore Sun.

“A book of vital interest to the college girl, to her family, and to all who are concerned directly or indirectly in college education for girls.”—Hartford Courant.

“Deserves high commendation, both for its lessons of wisdom, and the wholesome satire of its fun—a book with much charm.”—Chicago Evening Post.

“Not for a long while have we read such a refreshing narrative as this.”—Literary Digest.

“Rebecca is the same likable and lovable girl as ever.... It is her good-nature and geniality, her almost uninterrupted happiness, that gives her an unlimited attractiveness. She is the embodiment of actual girlhood. She is as alive as any character can be within the imaginative pages of fiction.”

Boston Transcript.

“One cannot avoid a shrewd suspicion that some of the episodes are autobiographical, but, whether founded on fact or imagined, they make delightful reading, and worthily maintain the reputation of a writer who has done for the present generation of American and English readers much that Miss Alcott did for its predecessor.”

Spectator, London.

“Rebecca belongs to us and to our century as did Little Nell to the days of Dickens. She is like a May morning, or a bright June day, or an April promise. She has her smiles and her tears, her little hopes and fears and longings and ambitions—but after all is said—she is just Rebecca.”

Portland Daily Press.