, 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,