The Christmas sun was shining brilliantly, and it was not so desperately cold as the day before. Betty had hopes that the thin skim of snow would melt, so that the scent would lie for the fox-hunt the next morning. She ran downstairs as soon as she was dressed, and found the Colonel standing on the hearth-rug, his back to the fire, and his eyes turned resolutely away from Rosehill. Betty kissed him all over his face, and commanded him to be cheerful, as everybody should be on Christmas morning. Then Aunt Tulip and Uncle Cesar were called in for their simple gifts, and Kettle appeared with them, his clothes clean and respectable-looking. There was much talk between the Colonel and Uncle Cesar over Christmas days long past, and the Colonel, whatever his heart might be, carried out to the letter Betty’s injunction to be cheerful. As for Kettle, the sight of his Christmas stocking and his treasures, the collars and the gorgeous red cravat, and the magnificent prospect of a pair of new shoes, completely overwhelmed him. He could only look first at Betty and then at Aunt Tulip, and say to himself:

“This is the fust Chris’mus I ever see; the fust Chris’mus I ever see.”

“Didn’t you ever have a Christmas stocking before, Kettle?” asked Betty.

“Naw, Miss,” answered Kettle. “I done heah ’bout ’em, but I ain’t never had none befo’.”

Kettle’s bliss was further augmented when Aunt Tulip put a standing collar around his neck and tied the flaming red necktie under his chin. All was then swallowed up in Kettle’s rapture over his own appearance. He stood before the old-fashioned mirror over the pier table, his head barely reaching the top; his mouth came open as if it were on hinges, his eyes danced in his head, and words failed him. There are moments of rapture when speech is a superfluity, and so it was with Kettle when he beheld himself in his first cravat, and that a large one of brilliant red.

“Now, boy,” said Aunt Tulip severely, who did not believe in wasting indulgences on boys, “now that Miss Betty and ole Marse done been so good to you, you got to do all you kin to holp along. You got to pick up chips an’ fotch water an’ black ole Marse’s shoes an’ do everything you know how.”

“I cert’n’y will,” answered Kettle fervently. And then the divine spirit of gratitude appeared in his eyes, and he said:

“An’ I ain’ gwine to fergit that you washed my clo’es.”

“An’ washed you, too,” replied Aunt Tulip. “An’ you got to do it yourself every day, or I’ll see to you.”

This awful and indefinite threat impressed Kettle with a wholesome fear of the most harmless creature on earth—Aunt Tulip.

Then breakfast was served, and Kettle received his first lessons in bringing in batter-cakes. In the intervals between the relays of hot batter-cakes, Kettle glued his eyes to his own image in the glass with a vanity second only to that of Narcissus.

Of course, the Colonel had to hear all about the party, and who was there, and if the regulation Christmas festivities were thoroughly carried out.

“Once,” said the Colonel, “we celebrated Christmas that way at Rosehill, with an unstinted hospitality. Now——”

“Haven’t I told you,” cried Betty, sternly from across the table, “that you were not to make a single complaint against Fate on Christmas Day? Didn’t I tell you yesterday I knew this was going to be the pleasantest Christmas I ever had? So far it certainly has been. The dance last night was the most heavenly thing—my gown is in ribbons, but I can mend it up all right, and put in a couple of new breadths later in the week. And Mr. Fortescue told me he thought that a white muslin gown at Christmas time, with scarlet ribbons and a wreath of geranium leaves, with moss rosebuds, was the most beautiful and poetic costume a girl could wear.”

The Colonel’s white teeth showed under his trim gray moustache.

“Fortescue knows how to pay compliments, my dear,” he said.

“All right,” cried Betty. “A man who doesn’t know how to pay compliments and isn’t equal to telling colossal fibs to the girl he is dancing with, isn’t the man for me.”

When breakfast was over Uncle Cesar brought in the only melancholy news of the day. Old Whitey had gone lame, and there was no going to church that day, nor was it likely that he would be fit to ride the next day at the hunt. Betty sighed deeply. The crust of snow was rapidly disappearing, and the ground would be in good condition for the hunt. However, Betty was of a hopeful nature, and felt sure that a horse would drop down out of the clouds for her to ride.

The Christmas dinner was to be served at the old-fashioned hour of four o’clock, so when breakfast was over and Betty had paid a visit to old Whitey, she went up to her room and, throwing herself upon her bed, began to make up her lost arrears of sleep. The Colonel was downstairs absorbed in his new histories, which Betty had given him for his Christmas gift, and Betty slept peacefully until it was quite three o’clock, and the winter sun was beginning to decline. Then, as she lay awake thinking pleasant thoughts, her door was noiselessly opened, and Kettle appeared above his red cravat, carrying a big bouquet of white roses. He laid the roses down on Betty’s pillow, and said:

“The gent’man who fotch ’em is downstairs—Mr. Fortescue.”

Betty sat up and buried her face in the fresh roses. She knew them well. They came from the greenhouse at Rosehill, and she herself had taught them to bloom late and luxuriantly.

“Tell the gentleman I will be down immediately,” she said, and then, running to her mirror, proceeded to make a fetching toilette out of very simple elements. Her well fitting dark blue gown set off her slender figure, and when she came into the sitting-room, carrying her huge bunch of roses, Fortescue, who sat talking to the Colonel, thought she looked like a peach ripening on the southern wall.

“I thank you so much,” said Betty sweetly to Fortescue. “I tended the roses in the greenhouse at Rosehill as long as we lived there. We have no greenhouse here, so we couldn’t bring the rosebushes with us. But I always had roses for Christmas.”

“And I hope you will always have roses for Christmas,” replied Fortescue gallantly.

Then they sat and talked gaily together as young people do, of dances and hunting and all of the great affairs of youth, the Colonel putting in a word occasionally. Fortescue was lucky enough to be asked to all the Christmas parties.

“I should like,” he said, “to give a party at Rosehill, but I don’t know how. I am only a man, you know. I should wish to do it right, but I am afraid I can’t make it quite as it ought to be on short notice. Now, next Christmas, if I can get leave, I will have a party, too. That is, if you, Miss Betty, will help me.”

The Colonel liked the modesty of this speech, and at once said that Betty would help.

Then Betty told the melancholy story of old Whitey’s lameness. Fortunately, Sally Carteret, knowing that old Whitey had to be saved for the hunt, had invited Betty to go with her to the party that evening at Red Plains, which was close by.

”Do you mean,” asked Fortescue, “that you are to miss the hunt?”

“I am afraid so,” said poor Betty dolefully.

“But that isn’t to be thought of,” cried Fortescue. “I have several horses at Rosehill, and I can give you a mount. Birdseye, that I rode over here, is the gentlest and kindest horse that ever stepped. Although not a regular hunter, she can get along the road and over the fences all right.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Betty, jumping up, “do let me see her! Granddaddy, may I ride Birdseye to-morrow morning?”

The Colonel hesitated a moment.

“I should require, my love,” he said, “to see Birdseye. Perhaps she has never had a side-saddle on her, or known what a riding-skirt is.”

“We can try her,” suggested Fortescue.

Betty ran out into the little hall, and, picking up a red scarf, threw it over her head, calling back to the Colonel:

“Don’t you dare, Granddaddy, to come out on the porch. You can see from the window.”

Fortescue was not a foot behind Betty, and they both ran to where Birdseye, dancing to keep herself warm, stood under a great holly tree. From the kitchen window peeped a little round, black face.

“We can try Birdseye with that little black boy,” said Fortescue. “She wouldn’t hurt a baby.”

Betty beckoned to Kettle, who came out willingly enough, his constitutional grin over-spreading his face.

“Run to the stable and get a horse-blanket,” said Betty, which Kettle proceeded to do, and returned in a couple of minutes.

But Kettle’s face suddenly changed when Fortescue, catching him by the shoulder, wrapped the horse-blanket around him as if it were a skirt, and Betty supplied a couple of hair-pins with which to fasten it. Then Fortescue, flinging the boy on Birdseye’s back, put the reins in his hand, saying:

“Now, you little scamp, gallop around the lawn.”

Kettle, his scared eyes nearly bouncing out of his little black face, his grin wholly disappeared, was quite incapable of taking a gallop around the lawn of his own initiative. He clung desperately to the reins, and began to stutter.

“G-g-g-g-ood Gord A’mighty, Miss Betty! I’s jes’ skeered to death of this heah hoss!”

Birdseye, however, well bred, well behaved, and intelligent, paid no attention to the squirming, frightened burden upon her shapely back. Fortescue, taking her by the bridle, led her to the paling around the little lawn, and then, with a twig broken from a big holly tree, gave her a sharp cut on the flank. Birdseye knew what was expected, and, rising, she made a beautiful standing jump over the paling. At that Kettle, with a yell, dropped the reins and grabbed the mare around the neck with both arms. Not even this could disturb Birdseye’s admirable poise. Fortescue himself made a standing leap over the paling and, running Birdseye around, made her do another beautiful jump over the paling. By that time, not even fear of Fortescue or love of Betty could keep Kettle on Birdseye’s back another minute. As soon as she came to a standstill, he tore off the horse-blanket and, dropping to the ground, ran as fast as his short legs could carry him into the kitchen, and disappeared.

The Colonel, who was watching from the window, tapped his approval on the window-pane. Fortescue then mounted, and, riding off some distance in the field, came back at a swinging gallop, and Birdseye took the paling most beautifully in her stride, flying over it like a bird. Betty immediately fell deeply in love with Birdseye, and declared that she must go upstairs and put on her habit, and test the horse for herself. In a little while, she came down, more bewitching than ever to Fortescue’s eyes, in her trim black habit and little beaver hat.

Fortescue, mindful of Colonel Beverley’s scrutiny, put Betty on horseback in the old way, by taking her slim foot in his hand, and Betty stiffening her knee and rising into the side-saddle, which had been put on Birdseye’s back. Betty did the standing leap beautifully half a dozen times, and then, riding off in the field, turned and came back, and Birdseye made a running leap like the flight of a lapwing. Fortescue had no doubt that Betty was quite safe by her own horsemanship on Birdseye’s back. They were so interested in their pastime that they forgot the passing of the hours. The Christmas dinner at Holly Lodge was served at four o’clock, and just before the hour Uncle Cesar came out of the house and said with a courtly bow to Fortescue:

“Ole Marse, he say it is mos’ fou’ o’clock, an’ you mus’ come in an’ have Christmas dinner with Miss Betty an’ him.”

Fortescue demurred a little, meaning all the while to accept. His riding clothes were hardly suitable, he said. But Betty clinched the matter by saying to Uncle Cesar:

“Tell the Colonel that Mr. Fortescue will stay to dinner, and hopes his riding clothes will be excused.”

There was just time for Betty to skip upstairs and jump into a little gown of a pale and jocund yellow, with an open neck, around which she hung the Colonel’s Christmas gift, the little locket. The elbow sleeves showed her dimpled arms, and with deliberate coquetry she put in her shining hair one of the white roses Fortescue had brought her, and another over her innocent and affectionate little heart. When she entered the sitting-room, which served also as a dining-room, Betty was justly triumphant. She knew that she was looking her best.