The soft, pure voice sounded in his ears like some fine melody of olden poets—­her frank, kind eyes, as she looked at him, soothed and quieted him.  Again, she was the little laughing star of his childhood, as when they wandered about over the fields—­little children—­that period so recent, yet which seemed so far away, because the opening heart lives long in a brief space of time.  Again, she was to him little Redbud, he to her was the boy-playmate Verty.  She had done all by a word—­a look; a kind, frank smile, a single glance of confiding eyes.  He loved her more than ever—­yes, a thousand times more strongly, and was calm.

He followed her to the harpsichord, and watched her in every movement, with quiet happiness; he seemed to be under the influence of a charm.

“I think I will try and sing the ‘Rose of Glengary,’” she said, smiling; “you know, Verty, it is one of the old songs you loved so much, and it will make us think of old times—­in childhood, you know; though that is not such old, old time—­at least for me,” added Redbud, with a smile, more soft and confiding than before.  “Shall I sing it?  Well, give me the book—­the brown-backed one.”

The old volume—­such as we find to-day in ancient country-houses—­was opened, and Redbud commenced singing.  The girl sang the sweet ditty with much expression; and her kind, touching voice filled the old homestead with a tender melody, such as the autumn time would utter, could its spirit become vocal.  The clear, tender carol made the place fairy-land for Verty long years afterwards, and always he seemed to hear her singing when he visited the room.  Redbud sang afterwards more than one of those old ditties—­“Jock o’ Hazeldean,” and “Flowers of the Forest,” and many others—­ditties which, for us to-day, seem like so many utterances of the fine old days in the far past.

For, who does not hear them floating above those sweet fields of the olden time—­those bright Hesperian gardens, where, for us at least, the fruits are all golden, and the airs all happy?

Beautiful, sad ditties of the brilliant past! not he who writes would have you lost from memory, for all the modern world of music.  Kind madrigals! which have an aroma of the former day in all your cadences and dear old fashioned trills—­from whose dim ghosts now, in the faded volumes stored away in garrets and on upper shelves, we gather what you were in the old immemorial years!  Soft melodies of another age, that sound still in the present with such moving sweetness, one heart at least knows what a golden treasure you clasp, and listens thankfully when you deign to issue out from silence; for he finds in you alone—­in your gracious cadences, your gay or stately voices—­what he seeks; the life, and joy, and splendor of the antique day sacred to love and memory!

And Verty felt the nameless charm of the good old songs, warbled by the young girl’s sympathetic voice; and more than once his wild-wood nature stirred within him, and his eyes grew moist.  And when she ceased, and the soft carol went away to the realm of silence, and was heard no more, the young man was a child again; and Redbud’s hand was in his own, and all his heart was still.