“You do not say anything,” said Alice, as Quincy finished reading and remained silent.

He replied, “You have conferred judicial functions upon me and a judge does not give his opinion until the evidence is all in.”

“Ah!  I see,” said Alice.  “My knowledge of metrical composition,” she continued, “is very limited.  What I know of it I learned from an old copy of Fowler’s Grammar that I bought at Burnham’s on School Street soon after I went to Boston.  I have always called what you just read a poem.  Is it one?” she asked, looking up with a smile.

“I think it is,” replied Quincy, “and,” he added inadvertently, “a very pretty one, too.”

“Oh!  Mr. Judge,” laughing outright “you have given aid and comfort to the prisoner before the evidence was all in.”

And Quincy was forced to laugh heartily at the acuteness she had shown in forcing his opinion from him prematurely.”

“Now, this one,” said Alice, “I call a song.  I know which one it is by the size and thickness of the paper.”  And she handed him a foolscap sheet.

Quincy took it and glanced over it a moment or two before he spoke, Alice leaning forward and listening intently for the first sound of his voice.  Then Quincy uttered those ever pleasing words, “Sweet, Sweet Home,” and delivered, with great expression, the words of the song.

“You read it splendidly,” cried Alice, with evident delight.  “Would it be presuming on your kindness if I asked you to read the refrain and chorus once more, Mr. Sawyer?”

“I shall enjoy reading it again myself,” remarked Quincy, as he proceeded to comply with Alice’s pleasantly worded request.

Refrain: 

There is no place like home, they say,
No matter where it be;
The lordly mansion of the rich,
The hut of poverty. 
The little cot, the tenement,
The white-winged ship at sea;
The heart will always seek its home,
Wherever it may be.

Chorus: 

Sweet, sweet home! 
To that sweet place where youth was passed our thoughts will turn;
Sweet, sweet home! 
Will send the blood to flaming face, and hearts will burn. 
Sweet, sweet home! 
It binds us to our native land where’er we roam,
No land so fair, no sky so blue,
As those we find when back we come to sweet, sweet home!

“Of course you know that lovely song, ’Juanita’?” said Alice.

“Certainly,” said Quincy, and he sang the first line of the chorus.

Alice’s voice joined in with his, and they finished the chorus together.  A thrill went through Quincy as he sang the last line, and he was conscious that his voice quivered when he came to the words, “Be my own fair bride.”

“You sing with great expression,” said Alice, “If you like these new words that I have written to that old melody we can sing them together.  I have called it Loved Days.  I think this is the one,” she said, as she passed him several small sheets pinned together.