For answer Ferry tried for the proper key, found it—­under his breath—­and began, very softly, and on a low note, to sing.  Janet joined him with a subdued contralto, and the two voices, without words, made themselves into a harmonious undertone of an accompaniment.  Upon this support, presently, rose Constance’s pure notes.  It was no “show singing,” this time, and the song did not lift above a gentle volume which seemed to fit, as Sally had anticipated, into the night.  But the listeners gave themselves to the listening as they had never done before, even in the many times they had heard this girl.  Even Jake Kelly, on his driver’s seat, turned about to hearken with held breath.  The farm-hand drew his horses down to a walk, that not a note might be marred.

“A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! 
    Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Ferned grot—­
The veriest school
  Of Peace, and yet the fool
  Contends that God is not—­
Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool? 
Nay, but I have a sign: 
’Tis very sure God walks in mine.”

The words[A] were familiar to some of them—­the music new.  Together words and music were something to remember.

[Footnote A:  The words are those of Thomas Edward Brown.]

Certain of these phrases came in over and over, throughout the song—­taking hold of one’s heart most appealingly. “Not God—­in gardens!—­when the eve is cool?” came again and again, till one felt it indeed to be the word of the fool.  Then, in exquisite harmony, fell the assurance—­“Nay, but I have a sign—­a sign—­a sign—­’Tis very sure God walks in mine!”

Everybody but Sally found words in which to tell, in some sort, how the song had seemed to them, even Alec observing boyishly, “I say, but that’s great.  I didn’t know you folks could all sing.”

After some minutes had gone by, Donald Ferry bent to speak in Sally’s ear.  She was looking off into the night, her hands clasped tight together in her lap.  “I know,” he said, very gently.

“You always know,” she answered, under cover of the talk, which was now going on again.  “Tell me,”—­wistfully—­“do you think—­He—­walks in mine?”

“I know it.  He walks in every garden—­when He is wanted there.”

CHAPTER XVI

TIME-TABLES

“If ever I felt weepy over seeing people off, it’s this minute!”

“We feel just as weepy over going, Sally Lunn.  But cheer up.  We shall come out every other minute, Jarvis and I, and mother will be planning all winter, I know, how early she can get back in the spring.”

Josephine gave Sally a tremendous hug as she spoke, and Mrs. Burnside, in her turn, took the girl into her motherly embrace.

“I shouldn’t have believed,” she said warmly, “how reluctant I should be to go back to town in the fall, after this charming summer—­nor how willing I should be to promise to return in the spring.  Sally, dear—­do make use of our rooms all you care to—­though they’re not half as cheery as your own, for the winter.”