It was as cold as Christmas, and Christmas Eve it was. A thin crust of snow lay over the level landscape of lower Virginia, and the declining sun cast a lovely rose-red light upon the silver world. Afar off lay the river that led to the great bay, both river and bay frozen hard and fast as steel. The crystal air was sharp and still, and in the opaline sky a little crescent moon smiled at the sparkling stars. Along the broad lane that led from the wooded heights to the spacious brick mansion of Rosehill, seated on the river bank, a great four-horse team trotted merrily, the stout farm-horses snorting with delight, and the negro driver and his helpers laughing, and singing Christmas catches, their voices echoing in the clear, cold air. The Rosehill mansion itself seemed to radiate Christmas cheer. From the warm, wide-throated chimneys curled delicate wreaths of blue smoke, and a venturesome peacock had climbed upon the flat roof and stood on one leg, warming himself comfortably against the hot chimney. The panes of the many windows glittered in the sinking sun, and on the frozen river a couple of skaters flew back and forth like birds upon the wing, their shrill little cries and laughter resounding gaily in the crisp cold.

A mile down the river lay another cheerful homestead, not stately and wide and long, with marble steps and a fine carriage drive, like Rosehill, but little and low and with a single chimney. No gorgeous peacock huddled against its one chimney, but a family of blue pigeons, finding the pigeon-cote chilly, circled about the solitary chimney, and were as merry as if they had been great splendid peacocks instead of the humble little birds that they were. The tall holly trees in all their Christmas glory of red and green, on each side of the little porch, gave the place its name of Holly Lodge. From its windows, too, streamed cheerfulness, and a golden fire sang and danced upon the broad hearth in its one small sitting-room. But Holly Lodge could not be otherwise than gay, because in it dwelt Betty Beverley, the gayest young creature alive.

Now, Betty had a splendid dowry; that is to say, she had youth, health, gaiety of heart, an indomitable spirit, and a pair of the softest, loveliest, most misleading dark eyes that were ever seen. Betty was the soul of sincerity and truth, yet she was also an arrant hypocrite and flatterer to those she loved. Likewise, she had the heart of a lion concerning burglars, tramps, runaway horses, and dangers of all sorts; but when it came to caterpillars and daddy-long-legs, small spiders and frightened mice, Betty was cowardly beyond words, and shrieked and fled at the mere sight of those harmless creatures. Music and dancing were like foretastes of Heaven to Betty, who could dance twenty-five miles a night without the slightest fatigue. But she was the same gay little Betty in the long wintry days at Holly Lodge, with no one for company except her grandfather, Colonel Beverley, and his rheumatism, and Uncle Cesar and his wife, Aunt Tulip, the two old servants who had followed them into exile. For Colonel Beverley was born and reared in the great house of Rosehill, and Betty, too, was born there, and had passed the whole of her short life in its stately rooms and its old walled garden, except the last year. Evil times had come upon Colonel Beverley, and the piled up mortgages at last drove him forth. The Colonel, tall and straight as an Indian, grim to look at, but gentle at heart, said truly that for himself he minded not Holly Lodge, with its few cramped rooms and its mite of a garden patch; but for little Betty—— Here, the Colonel’s voice would break, and whenever this point was reached in the discussion, Betty always rushed at the Colonel and kissed him all over his handsome clear-cut, pallid face, and declared that he had insulted her by his hateful remarks, and that she would a thousand times rather live at Holly Lodge with him, than live at Rosehill with millions of dollars, without him. As Betty was very young and unsophisticated, she really believed this, and it comforted the Colonel’s weary heart to hear it.

This was their first Christmas at Holly Lodge, but as Betty said to the Colonel on the afternoon of Christmas Eve:

“Granddaddy, I mean this to be the very happiest Christmas we ever had, because we are together, and your rheumatism is better, and I am going to a dance every night this week, and have a perfectly brand new white muslin gown to wear, and goodness knows what will be left of it after six dances, because I never really begin to enjoy myself until I have torn my gown all to pieces!”

While Betty was saying this, she was standing, delicately poised, on a table, putting a wreath of laurel leaves around the portrait of Colonel Beverley, taken in his youth, when he was a boy officer, with his first epaulets, his hand sternly grasping his sword. Above the portrait hung the same sword, and Betty was wont to decorate the hilt with a sprig of laurel, too. The portrait was a handsome picture, and the Colonel was secretly proud of it. A part of Betty’s outrageous flattery of Colonel Beverley was that to assure the Colonel, solemnly, that nothing would induce her to marry until she could find a man as handsome as he was in his youth. The Colonel, sitting in his great chair, listened to this for the hundredth time with the greatest pleasure. Since that St. Martin’s summer of his youth, there had been a long period of tranquil life at Rosehill. Then had come the great tragedy of the wartime, and Colonel Beverley had put on a gray uniform, and ridden at the head of the regiment the county raised, his stalwart son, Betty’s father, riding by his bridle. The Colonel came back in four years to Rosehill, but the young son lay buried on the Bed of Honor, with a bullet through his brave young heart. Betty was a dark-eyed baby girl in those days. Now, she was a dark-eyed girl of twenty, and was all the Colonel had left in this world. Even Rosehill went with the rest. The back of Colonel Beverley’s chair was against the window which looked toward Rosehill, for the Colonel was sixty-eight, and could not forget wholly the sixty-seven years when Rosehill had been his home, and did not like to look toward the place. To make it worse, Rosehill had been bought by some rich Northern people, who had wickedly and sacrilegiously, as the Colonel considered, put a furnace in the house, electric lights and many other modern and devilish inventions, which harrowed the Colonel’s soul. So, like a wise man, he turned his eyes away.

Within the plain little room were some relics that had survived the universal wreck. There was Betty’s harp, to which she sang the old-fashioned ballads the Colonel loved. Then, there was the Beverley punch-bowl—a great bowl of old Lowestoft porcelain, with three medallions, representing hunting scenes, and an inscription in faded gilt, “For John Beverley, Esq., of Virginia.” It had belonged to many John Beverleys, Esquires, before it came to the Colonel, and was regarded as a sort of fetich in the family. Betty alone had the responsibility of dusting it, and Uncle Cesar would say solemnly:

“I’d heap ruther break my arm than break that thur bowl.”

Beside the bowl, there was some quaint old silver and the 1807 decanters, huge things of pink and white cut glass, that had known good vintages in their day. By Betty’s harp lay her grandfather’s fiddle-case, for the Colonel loved his fiddle, and he and Uncle Cesar, his “boy,” fiddled seriously together, as they had done since they were small boys together, sixty years before, and had got rapped over the head with the same fiddle-bow.

There were a plenty of windows in the little room, and, as muslin curtains are cheap, there were plenty of curtains, and geraniums and verbenas too were abundant, as they cost nothing at all. On the walls was a pretty paper, all roses and green leaves, pasted on by Betty’s own hands, with Uncle Cesar holding the stepladder while Betty had worked, singing while she worked. It was Betty too who had painted the shabby woodwork white, daubing away gaily, and laughing at her blunders. Nevertheless, she had succeeded, for Betty was a very efficient person. The chimney had a wide throat and drew like a windlass. So, on the whole, the sitting-room at Holly Lodge was a cheerful place.

Betty, standing on a little table, was so engrossed in her occupation of getting the laurel wreath straight over the Colonel’s picture, that she did not hear the tramp of a horse’s hoofs outside, nor a knock at the front door, nor Uncle Cesar opening it and a man’s tread in the little hall. In her eagerness, she reached up very far, and although she was a slim creature, the rickety table trembled under her light foot, and the Colonel cried out:

“Mind, Betty, mind!”

But it was too late. The table swayed, and Betty uttered a little shriek and came down with a crash, not upon the floor, but in the arms of a handsome young officer in his cap and military cloak, who appeared to have dropped down the chimney.