If Cherokee had but known that the plighted troth was broken--had gone all to pieces, in fact--she might have felt some relief for that dull ache she felt. Suddenly she turned to her husband: “Robert, I have a great favor to ask?” “What’s that?” “Let’s take a vacation. Change would help us both.” “I am too busy, Cherokee, I cannot leave my work now. People are never contented. Those in the depths of the country sigh for the city excitement, and those in the city long to be soaked in sunshine and tangled in green fields.” “I suppose it is selfish. I shall not ask you again,” she answered, resignedly. “If things were different, nothing would please me more than to take an outing by mountains or seaside.” “Neither for me,” she answered. “I would rather spend the summer down at my old home in Kentucky; you know my cousin owns it, and no one lives there at present. I should like to go back where I could sit again beneath a big, low moon, and hear the reapers sing--where I could see the brown gabled barns, and smell the loose hay-mows’ scented locks.” “If that’s all, you can go to any farm and see as much.” “That isn’t half; I want to see my mother’s grave, with its headstone that briefly tells her record, ‘She made home happy,’” and then she said, with a little sigh: “There is still another reason--I would have you all to myself a whole season.” “Would you really like that?” he asked, brightening. “More than anything.” “Then I promise you, you shall go.” As they drove up to the stoop, upon their return, they saw Marrion waiting. When he assisted Cherokee to the street, he fancied he never had seen in her manner so much softness, so much of that sweet, wonted look that goes with domestic charm. Her fine, regular features expressed nothing sadder than a pleased pensiveness. CHAPTER XXII. THE HOME IN THE SOUTH. They had gone to the country--to Kentucky. The wind seemed to blow out of all the heavens across the greening world. With what light touch it lifted the hazel, bent to earth at morning. How gentle to the wind-flower--its own spoiled child. Quiet brooded over the wide, gray farm-house. All the doors stood open to the soft air, and Cherokee had gone into the garden, where the commonplace flowers were in disarray. Her straying foot crushed memoried fragrance from borders all overgrown; wild thyme ran vagrantly in happy tangle everywhere. She did not like to see such riotous growth where once had been borders, clean and kept.