The Christmas festivities closed with a bang, the visitors departed, and the county settled down to dullness between the new year and the springtime. Those of the young people who could, went away to the cities for the gay season. Betty Beverley was left very much alone, but this she did not mind. Indeed, it was rather a respite to her. Betty, like all her kind, had a heart, and was brimming over with emotions. Until that Christmas time, her heart and her emotions had been her sport, and she had gone upon her cruel path distributing smiles and downcast glances and pretty phrases impartially, among many admirers. But the coquette always comes to grief at last, and is throttled when the great master passion awakes. Betty was still coquettish to all the world except to Fortescue. It is true he had not asked her outright to marry him, but Betty rather liked the graduated steps toward the ultimate heights of joy. Being a confident creature, she had no doubt that Fortescue was hers, but she was quite willing to put off the time when the unseen bonds should become the visible chain. For these Southern coquettes develop naturally into devoted and adoring wives, with no eyes for any man but one.

There had been glorious winter weather up to New Year, but within a week the January storms set up, and for two months there was sleet and snow. The small brown house was shut in, and there was little passing back and forth among the county people. The bad weather kept Betty at home many Sundays from the old Colonial church, with its venerable rector. The Colonel’s rheumatism was much encouraged by the stormy season, and he too was house-bound. In this time of solitude, Betty lived in two worlds, one the narrow walls of Holly Lodge, and the other the great and splendid world of the imagination, the Arcady of youth and love. As she looked out of her dormer window toward Rosehill, a mysterious smile shone upon her speaking face as she saw herself once more the mistress of the fine old house. It is true there was an obstacle to be got over. This was Fortescue’s profession, because he had told her how a soldier was sent hither and yon. Betty was the last girl in the world to ask a man to give up his profession, and, most of all, the profession of arms, but youth and inexperience can rearrange, in theory, the pawns upon the chessboard of life.

Fortescue kept up an active siege. Every week came flowers from him, or a book, or a box of bonbons, something to remind Betty of his existence. Constantly little white notes were written by Betty, thanking him, and with a word or two of deeper meaning. Betty reckoned, as a certainty, that in the spring Fortescue would return with the officers who were to make the military survey. There would be at least a dozen officers, so Fortescue had told Betty, and they were to have a camp on the Colonel’s land, only five miles away, and although there would be much work, there would also be a little play.

As Betty looked out of the window on the wintry scene, she imagined it in the first bloom of the early spring, the leaden skies turned to a sapphire blue, the frozen earth all brown and green and odoriferous, the naked branches of the trees and shrubs were transformed into their first sweet budding, and the silver river seemed dancing in the sun. Betty was a busy little soul, and had not much time for reverie, particularly as she was hard at work on her summer clothes, making dainty little muslin frocks for herself, which she could do very well. But there was a magic hour in her own little room after she was ready for bed, when the candles were out and only the scarlet and golden glory of the firelight shone upon her. Then Betty, in a smart little rose-colored dressing gown, which was the pride of her heart, would huddle against the dormer window that looked toward Rosehill, and think thoughts and dream dreams.