But the Colonel was to see one more Christmas, a year later. On that day, Betty's boy, the most beautiful baby ever seen, was to be christened "Beverley Fortescue" for the old Colonel. There was to be no Christmas ball at Rosehill, for the Colonel was past going downstairs, and sat in his great chair awaiting from the Great Commander the order to march. The baby was to be christened in the Colonel's room, and out of the old bowl which served both for eggnogs and for christenings. Fortescue and the Colonel and Uncle Cesar and Aunt Tulip and Kettle thought they never saw so lovely a picture as Betty, with a pale, glorified face, and wearing a long, clinging white gown such as are seen in the pictures of angels, holding her baby in her arms to receive baptism. The baby, beautiful and dark-eyed, looked seriously at the new world about him, and acted with the dignity worthy of his name. When the ceremony was over, and the old clergyman, who had also baptized Betty when she was a baby, was gone, Betty, holding her boy in her lap, sat by the Colonel. Fortescue, looking proudly at the baby, said, "My son shall be a soldier," and the baby nodded, as much as to say: "I know what you mean." Kettle, in convulsions of delight, watched him, while Aunt Tulip, in a nurse's cap and a huge white apron, revelled in her new dignity as the baby's mammy. "Boy," said the Colonel to Uncle Cesar, "give me my sword." Uncle Cesar took the sword down from over the mantelpiece, and the Colonel putting the hilt in the baby's hand, said to him: "I give you this sword. It is all I have to give, but it is much, for the sword means honor, and you must keep your honor virgin, and without rust or decay, like this sword. And it means courage. You must fear no one but God. And truth is a sword, and so you must live and act and speak truthfully. When years have passed and this sword comes into your possession, your mother and father will tell you what I have said. May you never forget it." The baby grasped the sword firmly with his tiny hand, and his great dark eyes were fixed gravely, as if he understood every word, upon the brave old eyes of the Colonel. Then the sword was again hung upon the wall, and they all went out of the room, leaving the Colonel to rest, with Uncle Cesar to watch him. For in those last hours, the humble serving-man was close to his "ole Marse." Down in the hall, Fortescue was saying to Betty, her hand in his: "I have a Christmas gift for you that I haven't yet given you. I see the little dent in the locket around your neck and the place where the chain is mended. I wouldn't tell you until I had tested it, but I have had perfect sight now for several days." For answer, Betty threw herself in his arms. "Now," she cried, "you can once more be a soldier!" Upstairs, the Colonel was talking feebly with Uncle Cesar, his mind sounding the deeps and shallows of memory.