‘Oh no! True love will be his guard and bring him safe again,
For it’s, oh! my heart would break, if my Highland lad were slain.’”
The accompaniment ended in a torrent of notes, out of which the gallant, plaintive air emerged for the last time.
“I liked that,” said Claire, softly. Her eyes were tearful. Almost every tune that she knows very well indeed will bring tears to her eyes, by rousing associations with a past that she always rates higher than she does the present.
“She doesn’t look like the sort of person to sing that sort of song,” analyzed Sallie Ambrey. “She looks hard.”
“She looks unhappy,” said Mary.
Christopher leaned forward. “Who is Mrs. Harter?”
“A girl called Diamond Ellison—old Ellison’s daughter. She married and went out to the East a few years ago.”
“It’s a pity she looked so bad-tempered all the time she was singing,” observed Dolly Kendal.
“Good-looking woman,” General Kendal muttered, and Mrs. Kendal, Claire, Sallie, and Aileen Kendal all said, “Oh, do you think so?” in tones implying surprise, or disagreement, or both. But Nancy Fazackerly agreeably said, “Yes, isn’t she?” after her fashion.