‘No,’ said Harriet, reddening.
‘No. Not in the best of taste. Try again.’
He hesitated; ran from one tune to another; then settled down to that best-known of all Elizabethan love-songs.
‘Fain would I change that note
To which fond love hath charmed me....’
Harriet, with her elbows on the lid of the spinet and her chin propped on her hands, let him sing alone. Two young gentlemen, who had strayed in and were talking rather loudly in the front part of the shop, abandoned a half-hearted quest for brass candlesticks and came stumbling through the gloom to see who was making the noise.
‘True house of joy and bliss
Where sweetest pleasure is
I do adore thee;
I see thee what thou art,
I love thee in my heart
And fall before thee.’
Tobias Hume’s excellent air rises to a high-pitched a
