"Miss Betty," he asked, "what's the matter with you?"
"A great deal is the matter with me," sighed Betty, putting the letter in her pocket, and resuming her digging and trimming. What did it matter whether the roses bloomed that June or not? And the violets and the cowslips could not console her for Fortescue.
Betty remained a long time in the garden that morning. Kettle followed her about like a dog, every now and then asking anxiously:
In spite of her sadness and disappointment, Betty was roused out of herself by Kettle's sympathy.
"I don't feel any better now, Kettle," she said. "Perhaps I shall to-morrow."
But although Betty might show her chagrin and despondency before Kettle and the rosebushes and the violets and the cowslips, she had no intention whatever of letting anybody else see it. When she looked up and saw the Colonel coming out to take the air, pacing up and down the garden walk in the sunny spring day, Betty, who was a clever actress, put on her most smiling aspect. As the Colonel limped up and down for half an hour, his arm on Betty's shoulder, he thought he had never known her more cheerful. She told him quite naturally that she had had a letter from Mr. Fortescue, and that he was ordered to the Northwest, but, if possible, he would be at Rosehill the next day for a short time, and would come over to see them. The Colonel's emotions concerning Fortescue were very badly mixed and perplexing even to himself. He was not so selfish as to forget Betty's happiness, and Fortescue was a fine, upstanding young fellow, quite after the Colonel's heart. But there was something calculated to daunt the brave soul of the old man in the thought of his few remaining years without Betty. He had been called upon to resign the love of his youth, his only son, and Rosehill, and now this little one---- At the thought, the Colonel said to himself, as he had done many times in years past, amid the hail of bullets, with cannon thundering in his ears, or in snow and sleet and starvation, "Courage! Courage!"
All that day, Betty was in a dream. She knew very well the answer she would give Fortescue, but suddenly she looked into the stern face of Life, and saw what those dreams meant. How could she leave Holly Lodge and the Colonel and Aunt Tulip and Uncle Cesar and Kettle, and the young chickens, just hatched? Life was a practical affair with Betty, but, alas, sentiment and emotion were strong within her. She did not know how the next twenty-four hours passed, except that her eyes continually swept the narrow lane that led to the little gate of Holly Lodge. She would rather see Fortescue in the garden, and therefore dressed herself in her little pale yellow gown, and put on a great straw hat, trimmed with little yellow buds and green leaves, that was worthy of a dryad. The air was warm and soft at midday, and Betty was walking up and down the garden path, watching, watching, watching, and at last, just as she had turned her back to the gate and was walking the length of the little garden path, Fortescue was at her side. He looked so bronzed, so soldierly, so much the man, that Betty gave a little gasp of delight. There was a tall box-hedge in the little old garden which screened the walk from the windows of the house, so that Fortescue could take Betty's hand and be unseen as they walked up and down in the pleasant spring noon. Then Fortescue told her all: that he had received his unexpected orders and must go, that it wrung his heart to leave her, but that he was hers forever, and that though his body might be in the far Northwest, his heart and soul would be at Holly Lodge. Betty's eyes made answer to Fortescue, and her lips spoke the winged words that gave her to her lover. A pair of robins beginning housekeeping in the grape arbor at the end of the walk sang and trilled rapturously as they watched the lovers.