Mrs. Gano would pause, and half to herself repeat:
"'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork.'"
"Can you find the Scorpion, little girl?" her father would say.
And if she wasn't quick with eye and answer, her grandmother would stop, lifting her shawled arm with curious unmodern largeness of movement, and point the constellation out, half chanting:
"'By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent.'"
As if gently to divert her attention, the son would perhaps face about, and, walking slowly back with her to the house, would do a little quoting on his own account:
"'Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.'
Ah! the music—the sheer music in that man!"
"There was music before his day. And Tennyson is one of them that hath ears to hear, as well as tongue to speak. Small doubt but from his ivied casement in the West he heard the voice of the Lord from out the chambers of the South. 'Canst thou bind the secret influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his suns?'"