Betty Zane - Zane Grey (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

eyes were sparkling with pleasure. Failing to observe any indication of the change in Betty of which his wife had spoken, he concluded that women were better qualified to judge their own sex than were men. He had to confess to himself that the only change he could see in his sister was that she grew prettier every day of her life.

“Oh, papa. I hit Sam right in the head with a big snowball, and I made Betty run into the house, and I slid down the hill all by myself. Sam was afraid,” said Noah to his father.

“Noah, if Sammy saw the danger in sliding down the hill he was braver than you. Now both of you run to Annie and have these wet things taken off.”

“I must go get on dry clothes myself,” said Betty. “I am nearly frozen. It is growing colder. I saw Jack come in. Is he going to Fort Pitt?”

“No. He has decided to wait until good weather. I met Mr. Miller over at the garrison this afternoon and he wants you to go on the sled ride tonight. There is to be a dance down at Watkins’s place. All the young people are going. It is a long ride, but I guess it will be perfectly safe. Silas and Wetzel are going. Dress yourself warmly and go with them. You have never seen old Grandma Watkins.”

“I shall be pleased to go,” said Betty.

Betty’s room was very cozy, considering that it was in a pioneer’s cabin. It had two windows, the larger of which opened on the side toward the river. The walls had been smoothly plastered and covered with white birchbark. They were adorned with a few pictures and Indian ornaments. A bright homespun carpet covered the floor. A small bookcase stood in the corner. The other furniture consisted of two chairs, a small table, a bureau with a mirror, and a large wardrobe. It was in this last that Betty kept the gowns which she had brought from Philadelphia, and which were the wonder of all the girls in the village.

“I wonder why Eb looked so closely at me,” mused Betty, as she slipped on her little moccasins. “Usually he is not anxious to have me go so far from the fort; and now he seemed to think I would enjoy this dance tonight. I wonder what Bessie has been telling him.”

Betty threw some wood on the smoldering fire in the little stone grate and sat down to think. Like everyone who has a humiliating secret, Betty was eternally suspicious and feared the very walls would guess it. Swift as light came the thought that her brother and his wife had suspected her secret and had been talking about her, perhaps pitying her. With this thought came the fear that if she had betrayed herself to the Colonel’s wife she might have done so to others. The consciousness that this might well be true and that even now the girls might be talking and laughing at her caused her exceeding shame and bitterness.

Many weeks had passed since that last night that Betty and Alfred Clarke had been together.

In due time Col. Zane’s men returned and Betty learned from Jonathan that Alfred had left them at Ft. Pitt, saying he was going south to his old home. At first she had expected some word from Alfred, a letter, or if not that, surely an apology for his conduct on that last evening they had been together. But Jonathan brought her no word, and after hoping against hope and wearing away the long days looking for a letter that never came, she ceased to hope and plunged into despair.

The last few months had changed her life; changed it as only constant thinking, and suffering that must be hidden from the world, can change the life of a young girl. She had been so intent on her own thoughts, so deep in her dreams that she had taken no heed of other people. She did not know that those who loved her were always thinking of her welfare and would naturally see even a slight change in her. With a sudden shock of surprise and pain she realized that today for the first time in a month she had played with the boys. Sammy had asked her why she did not laugh any more. Now she understood the mad antics of Tige that morning; Madcap’s whinny of delight; the chattering of the squirrels, and Caesar’s pranks in the snow. She had neglected her pets. She had neglected her work, her friends, the boys’ lessons, and her brother. For what? What would her girl friends say? That she was pining for a lover who had forgotten her. They would say that and it would be true. She did think of him constantly.

With bitter pain she recalled the first days of the acquaintance which now seemed so long past; how much she had disliked Alfred; how angry she had been with him and how contemptuously she had spurned his first proffer of friendship; how, little by little, her pride had been subdued; then the struggle with her heart. And, at last, after he had gone, came the realization that the moments spent with him had been the sweetest of her life. She thought of him as she used to see him stand before her; so good to look at; so strong and masterful, and yet so gentle.

“Oh, I cannot bear it,” whispered Betty with a half sob, giving up to a rush of tender feeling. “I love him. I love him, and I cannot forget him. Oh, I am so ashamed.”

Betty bowed her head on her knees. Her slight form quivered a while and then grew still. When a half hour later she raised her head her face was pale and cold. It bore the look of a girl who had suddenly become a woman; a woman who saw the battle of life before her and who was