"Thought he couldn't wait until to-morrow," he said. "Or knew _she_ couldn't. Mammy hasn't changed, that is plain. But I shall sing to Miss Erskine first. About her namesake--and some other things." He jumped up and went for the banjo, placing himself then in the doorway where he could look down upon Cherry. She had put away the peas, and now had in her hand a bowl of yellow cream, which she was softly beating to a stiff froth. The other girls had finished their berries, and sat near her on the steps. Beyond, the honey bees hummed over clover and mignonette, the little brook tinkled along unseen. Behind him, Magnus could hear the pleasant murmur of the talk that went on within the house. Then a cow lifted up her voice and gave a long, plaintive moo, and a wren under the eaves poured out new tidings of the wealth that came to her every five minutes. Magnus leaned back his head against the doorpost and listened. "That bird sings for all she is worth," he said. It took such hold of him; the sweet home air and sounds and sunshine, the two dear girls watching him with their loving admiration, and the yet dearer, whose bent-down face told more than she meant it should, the sights and scents from hayfields and hills--it came upon Magnus Kindred like a spell. And as with it all mingled in the echoes of music from the graduating parade, he struck a few notes on the old banjo, and then sang out from the depths of his heart: "Home, home! Sweet, sweet home, O there's no place like home! There is no place like home." Cadet Kindred had by nature a rather rarely fine voice. Art had indeed never tutored nor trained it, but it was one of those voices which can never by possibility sing out of tune or time, and in the two years he had been away, exercise and growth had both strengthened and sweetened it; a sort of revelation now to the listening girls. The two sisters gazed at him as if nobody had ever sung before; Cherry's beater went slower and softer, then stopped, and the girl sat in breathless listening; until her lips began to tremble, and there came such a surge of sorrow and sympathy and delight in the music, and--and--everything else; that Cherry laid one hand upon her breast as if to quiet and keep it down, and at first dared not look at the singer, and then could not take her eyes away. As for Magnus, he had thrown himself into the music, as was his wont, being for the time all rapt and unconscious of other things. From "Sweet Home" to "Lang Syne"--back and forth as the band had done--so went the voice, and it was not until the words woke up some special association that Magnus took note of the sweet, pitiful eyes that were fixed on him. The other girls had pulled out their handkerchiefs. "We twa hae paidlet in the burn, Frae morning sun till dine; But we've wandered mony a weary fit, Sen auld lang syne." "That is just what we did, Cerise--do you remember? And just what I have done, since."