Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.”

“Lovely! Lovely!” cried the girls.

“I don’t know that tune,” said Laura Hilton, who had a sweet little voice of her own with a bird-like note and was ever in search of songs that would fit it. “I know the words, Herrick’s, aren’t they? But the tune is different from any I have ever heard.”

“It has a kind of teasing quality,” said Alora.

“The tune is my own,” declared the singer.

“Then you can write music too!” cried Irene. This was surely a remarkable person for her to take an unreasonable dislike to.

“Not write it—just sing it. I don’t know one note from the other except by ear,” answered Mrs. Markle still busily embroidering.