id his grandmother, "it comes hard on him now,
but, God willing, I hope he will live to thank me for it."
Little Wolf rose hastily. "I must go out and have a little talk with
Charley," she said.
"She is just like her father," said Mrs. Peters, as Little Wolf
flitted from the room, "when he first came to Chimney Rock he was a
princely looking man.
"O, she is the beautifulest lady I ever saw," was Fanny's enthusiastic
rejoinder.
"I have understood that she is very gay and fashionable since she came
from boarding school."
Fanny was at first rather doubtful as to what construction to put upon
the reports which had reached the ears of the old lady, and she
hesitated to endorse anything of the nature of which she was not quite
clear; but she finally compromised the matter by saying, "if it is
very good to be gay and fashionable, then she is, for she is nothing
else but good."
"Well, if she is only a humble, devoted Christian like her mother, I
shall be satisfied," sighed Mrs. Peters.
Fanny had by this time come to the conclusion that gay and fashionable
was only another name for superior goodness, and she answered
accordingly. "Why, Mrs. Peters, she is really a very gay, humble,
fashionable, devoted Christion. She is gooder than her mother, for she
never took me away from bad people as she did."
Not deeming it worth while to enter into any troublesome explanations,
Mrs. Peters determined to suit her language to the child's
comprehension, said simply, "Well, I hope she loves God, and will
teach you to love him too."
"O, she does love God, Mrs. Peters. I heard her speak to him ever so
many times last night, and I was teached to love him before she had
me," said Fanny very seriously.
At this instant the object of their conversation made her appearance
followed by Charley, whose countenance exhibited quite a different
aspect from that which it had worn a short time previously.
Little Wolf had successfully held the cup of consolation to him in the
form of a present and a promise, and she was now about to take her
leave, but Mrs. Peters detained her. Never came one into her presence
that she allowed to depart without first satisfying herself as to
whether, as she expressed it, they had "got religion."
Now, it was her belief that pure and undefiled religion before God is
this: "To visit the widow and fatherless in their affliction, and to
keep ourselves unspotted from the world." An intimate acquaintance
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