Gradually the little house at Holly Lodge assumed its usual aspect. The Colonel and Betty were flooded with offers of hospitality and with all sorts of services—those kindly acts which in country communities bridge over catastrophes. Fortescue was gone, having left the second day after Christmas. On that day he had come over to Holly Lodge to say good-by and to offer the resources of Rosehill in any emergency. He had come while Betty was watching Kettle, and although the Colonel urged that he might call her, Fortescue evaded it, and cut his visit short. The Colonel asked him if he himself had suffered any evil effects from the fire. Fortescue replied that his eyes had given him some trouble from the smoke, and that he would use the rest of his leave in going to New York to see an oculist. He supposed it was nothing, and that his eyes would cease to trouble him probably before he got to New York. The Colonel told this to Betty in good faith, but Betty’s interpretation was that Fortescue needed an excuse to go away as soon as possible, and gave herself no concern about his eyes. In her heart, however, still burned a deep resentment, and a longing regret for Fortescue. He was so brave—he was so much the soldier—and then Betty would check herself sternly, and try to think of him no more.

As the winter days went by, Kettle grew stronger, and was able to sit up in a little chair by the kitchen fire. Betty spent many hours amusing him, his little round, black face delighted with the simple games she taught him and the stories she told him. His Christmas presents had been given him, and of them all his new pocket-knife was his chief delight. He would sit by the hour before the kitchen fire, whittling industriously, and Aunt Tulip never once complained of the clutter he made. Betty charmed him by occasionally wearing the great green and gilt brooch, and the Colonel religiously read through “The Principles of Hydraulics in Mining.” In the evening, before Aunt Tulip put him to bed, it was Kettle’s treat to be helped into the sitting-room and to listen to Betty playing and singing to her harp, or the Colonel playing on his violin. The boy’s arms had been frightfully burned, but his hands had escaped. Several times he said to Betty, with a strange look of distress upon his little black face:

“Miss Betty, I want to arsk you sumpin’. I want you to arsk the doctor sumpin’.”

“What is it, Kettle?” Betty would inquire.

“I tell you pres’ny,” Kettle would reply. But the “pres’ny” did not come for a long time. Then, one day in March, when Kettle was able to walk about and was almost well, he crept up to Betty in the garden, and said to her hesitatingly:

“Miss Betty, what I want you to arsk the doctor is, whether I kin ever play the fiddle agin. I been tryin’ to arsk ’im, but somehow I k’yarn’ do it.”

“Certainly, I will ask the doctor, Kettle,” answered Betty cheerfully, “and I am sure you will be able to play the fiddle. Yonder is Doctor Markham’s buggy coming down the lane.”

Betty met the doctor at the house door. Kettle had slipped away; he evidently had not the courage to stay. Then Betty put her question.

“Certainly he will be able to play the fiddle,” replied Dr. Markham, smiling over his spectacles. “That little fellow is as hard as nails. There isn’t one child in a hundred who would have survived such injuries. But he’ll be all right.”

Betty called Kettle, who reappeared around the corner of the house. He came slouching up, with a faint shadow of his former grin upon his face. Something in Betty’s eyes told him that there was good news for him.

“Hello, you young rascal!” cried the doctor jovially. “In another month or two you will be running around here as mischievous as ever, and you will be able to fiddle all right when you get stronger. But you are not to touch the fiddle until I tell you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sirree,” answered Kettle delightedly, his mouth coming wide open. Then, looking from Betty to the doctor, and back again, and shuffling his feet awkwardly, he tried to express some of the gratitude that filled his humble little heart.

“Miss Betty, she treat me white, and so did you, Doc’ Markham. I ain’ a-gwine ter furgit it.”

Dr. Markham went in the house to see the Colonel, who was ailing, and who had been ailing a good deal that winter. The doctor’s cheery smile and pleasant words brightened the Colonel up immensely. When Dr. Markham rose to go, after one of those long and friendly visits of the country doctor which are so comforting, Betty went out with him. Kettle was waiting outside in the spring sunshine. In his hand was a small object, carefully wrapped up in white paper. Kettle shuffled up to the doctor as he was getting into his buggy, and said to him, with much stammering and stuttering:

“I—I done heah that folks pays doctors fur comin’ to see ’em. I ain’ got no money, but I got a mighty nice knife as Miss Betty gimme last Chris’mus, and I want you, Doc’ Markham, fur to take it. ’Tain’t much fur you, but it’s all I got, an’ I’se mighty glad to give it to you.”

Dr. Markham took the knife, looked at it, and admired it, and put it in his pocket, and then, taking off his hat, shook Kettle’s little black hand warmly.

“I thank you, Kettle,” he said, “from the bottom of my heart. I never had a fee in my life that meant more than this knife. I shall keep and use it, and whenever I look at it I shall remember an honest little boy, who will grow up to be an honest man.”

Kettle’s face was shining, as the doctor drove off, and which shone still more when Betty said to him,

“I am glad you gave the doctor your knife, Kettle. You shall have a new one next Christmas, I promise you.”