Mrs. Harter’s singing was calculated to please the unsophisticated, rather than the critical, among her audience. As in most audiences, however, the number of the former predominated over the latter. She had a good voice, a very strong and very true mezzo-soprano. She had, also, a number of cheap tricks whereby to produce cheap effects, and she made full use of them. “Third-rate teaching of the worst kind,” whispered Claire. Behind me I heard Captain Patch say to Mrs. Fazackerly, “I like her voice,” and Mrs. Fazackerly, the most musical person in Cross Loman, replied, eagerly, “Oh, so do I!” for once enabled to combine responsiveness and truth in a fashion that all too often eludes her. The Kendal family applauded with a detached, deprecating air at the end of the song. “I may not know a great deal about music, but I know what I like,” Mumma remarked, as she has very frequently remarked on other occasions, and Puppa hummed something to himself, which I think he honestly believed to be a true and faithful repetition of the last line of Mrs. Harter’s song, and waved his head about from side to side in a musical sort of way. The applause in the room was prolonged. The song had been a very popular one, a modern sentimental ballad with all the sham values of its kind, and set to a tune that frankly _was_ a tune, and could be trusted to “run in the heads” of those who heard it for hours after the concert was over. Mrs. Harter received an enthusiastic encore. There was a whispered consultation between her and the accompanist, a youth who always plays at all Cross Loman concerts, and whom we look upon as being almost part of the piano. To the surprise of everybody, and to the delight of a few, he struck up the air of “The Bluebells of Scotland.” “‘Oh, where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone? Oh, where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone?’ ‘He’s gone with streaming banners where noble deeds are done, And it’s, oh! in my heart, I wish him safe at home.’” The simplicity of the air was suited to Mrs. Harter’s clear voice, and she sang it without affectation. “That’s more like,” Mrs. Fazackerly murmured to Captain Patch, who nodded emphatically. The accompanist was introducing an immense number of runs, variations, and repetitions of the well-known theme, between each of the verses. But while she was singing he subdued his accompaniment to the merest murmur: “‘Oh, what, tell me what, if your Highland lad be slain? Oh, what, tell me what, if your Highland lad be slain?’ ‘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.