Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/47

  The singing of her songs was precisely like the narration of so many stories, told so simply and directly that the most hardened critic would have his sting removed without being aware of it. He would know that Tommy had n’t a remarkable voice, but he would forget to mention it because space was limited. Sometimes he would say that she was an interpreter rather than a singer, and Tommy, for her part, was glad to be called anything, and grateful when she was n’t brutally arraigned for the microscopic size of her talent.

It was Tommy’s captivating friendliness and the quality of her smile that “did” for the shyest and stiffest of men, for by the time she had finished her programme the thunderbolt, the classic, the eternal thunderbolt, had fallen, and Fergus Appleton was in love. Tommy began her unconscious depredations with “Near Woodstock Town” and “Phillida Flouts Me,” added fuel to the flames with “My Heart’s in the Highlands” and “Charlie Is My Darling,” and reduced his heart to ashes with “Allan Water” and “Has Sor-