The sun was nearly at zenith, and bright flecks of light lay here and there over the brown earth.  As Agatha grew accustomed to the shade, it seemed pleasant and not at all uncheerful—­the gaiety of sunlight subdued only to a softer tone.  The resolution which had brought her thither returned.  She stood up under the dome of pines and began softly to sing, trying her voice first in single tones, then a scale or two, a trill.  At first her voice was not clear, but as she continued it emerged from its sheath of huskiness clear and flutelike, and liquid as the notes of the thrushes that inhabited the wood.  The pleasure of the exercise grew, and presently, warbling her songs there in the otherwise silent forest, Agatha became conscious of a strange accompaniment.  Pausing a moment, she perceived that the grove was vocal with tone long after her voice had ceased.  It was not exactly an echo, but a slowly receding resonance, faint duplications and multiplications of her voice, gently floating into the thickness of the forest.

Charmed, like a child who discovers some curious phenomenon of nature, Agatha tried her voice again and again, listening, between whiles, to the ghostly tones reverberating among the pines.  She sang the slow majestic “Lascia ch’io pianga,” which has tested every singer’s voice since Haendel wrote it; and then, curious, she tried the effect of the aerial sounding-board with quick, brilliant runs up and down the full range of the voice.  But the effect was more beautiful with something melodious and somewhat slow; and there came to her mind an old-fashioned song which, as a girl, she had often sung with her mother: 

  “Oh! that we two were maying
  Down the stream of the soft spring breeze.”

She sang the stanza through, softly, walking up and down among the pines.  Danny, at first, walked up and down beside her gravely, and then lay down in the middle of the path, keeping an eye on Agatha’s movements.  Her voice, pitched at its softest, now seemed to be infinitely enlarged without being made louder.  It carried far in among the trees, clear and soft as a wave-ripple.  Entranced, Agatha began the second part of the song, just for the joy of singing: 

  “Oh! that we two sat dreaming
  On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down—­”

when suddenly, from the distance, another voice took up the strain.  Danny was instantly up and off to investigate, but presently came back wagging and begging his mistress to follow him.

In spite of her surprise in hearing another voice complete the duet, Agatha went on with the song, half singing, half humming.  It was a woman’s voice that joined hers, singing the part quite according to the book: 

  “With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth’s breast
  And our souls at home with God!”

The pine canopy spread the voices, first one and then the other, until the wood was like a vast cathedral filled with the softest music of the organ pipes.