CHAPTER XII.
SUNLIGHT.
The marriage was to be celebrated in two weeks.
Cherokee had too much common sense to wish an
elaborate wedding, when it would necessitate more
means than she possessed.
The Major and his wife, who was the personification of lovable good nature, considered together, and graciously agreed to extend to Robert, for these two weeks, the hospitality of their roof. What a sweetly good wife the Major had! The graces of her person corresponded to the graces of her mind. The beauty of her character found a fitting symbol in the sweet, gentle face—the refined, expressive mouth, that gave out wise counsel to Cherokee, in whom she felt so deep an interest.
Cherokee had the dimmest memory of her mother, whom she lost when she was a child in words of three letters, frocks to her knees, infantine socks, and little shoes fastened with two straps and a button. The Major's wife was so full of charity and tenderness that she did her best to compensate for the unhappy want of a mother. She now gave
