"Any way," Betty cried, when they had reasoned out that she could not desert the Colonel, nor could she refuse to marry her lover, nor could Fortescue abandon his profession, nor could Betty abandon the idea of presiding at Rosehill--"Any way, Granddaddy, it will only be thirty-five years now before Jack is retired, and then we can all three settle down at Rosehill." The preparations for Christmas gaieties began early, and the same round of dances and hunts and dinners and teas and festivities of all sorts was arranged. It was the third day before Christmas, and Betty, with her skirts pinned up, her sleeves turned back to her elbows, and a red silk handkerchief of the Colonel's tied around her head, was preparing the icing for the Christmas cake, when she saw Fortescue passing the window. There was no time to escape. The next minute he was in the little sitting-room, and Betty was clasped to his heart. After the first rapture of meeting, Betty made numerous apologies, unpinned her skirts, pulled down her sleeves, and removed the handkerchief from her shining hair, but Fortescue told her she did not look half so pretty as before. It was a happy hour, one of those little glimpses of the Elysian fields of the soul which come only to the young and the pure. Luckily, the Colonel was taking his afternoon stroll supported by his stick, and with Kettle as aide-de-camp in attendance. The lovers had a full hour to themselves in the violet dusk, the room only lighted by the wood fire and the pale glow of the wintry sunset. Presently, the Colonel came in and shook hands cordially with Fortescue. It was the hour when Betty sang to her harp the old songs the Colonel loved. Fortescue thought he had never seen so sweet a picture as Betty playing and singing to the harp, while the Colonel, leaning forward on his stick, listened with his soul in his eyes. Kettle, squatting tailor-fashion on the hearth, fixed his round eyes on Betty, and his little woolly black head was motionless while she was singing. Of course Fortescue stayed to supper, and Uncle Cesar was reinforced by Kettle, who was chief batter-cake server, and brought from the kitchen the numerous relays of hot batter-cakes, hot waffles, and hot biscuits of which the well known Virginia formula is, "Take two and butter them while they are hot." Afterward, when Kettle had had his supper, he was sent for to exhibit his accomplishments with the fiddle. Kettle played dances and sang simultaneously, his merry music delighting Fortescue, whose musical education was not above rag-time. Fortescue told about the arrangements he had made for the Christmas Eve ball at Rosehill, and Betty thought them ineffably grand. When Kettle had been sent away, there was much talk about armies and soldiers between Fortescue and the Colonel, whose heart was ever with the fighting men. Betty listened with delight to this modern Froissart's Chronicle, and said presently: "How glad I am to be a soldier's daughter!"