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.