14. The Ladies' Aid ladies were talking about a conversation they had overheard, before the meeting, between a man and his wife.
"They must have been at the Zoo," said Mrs. A.; "because I heard her mention 'a trained deer.'"
"Goodness me!" laughed Mrs. B. "What queer hearing you must have! They were talking about going away, and she said, 'Find out about the train, dear.'"
"Well, did anybody ever!" exclaimed Mrs. C. "I am sure they were talking about musicians, for she said, 'a trained ear,' as distinctly as could be."
The discussion began to warm up, and in the midst of it the lady herself appeared. They carried the case to her promptly, and asked for a settlement.
"Well, well, you do beat all!" she exclaimed, after hearing each one. "I'd been out in the country overnight and was asking my husband if it rained here last night."
15.
Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope
The careless lips that speak of sŏap for soap;
Her edict exiles from her fair abode
The clownish voice that utters rŏad for road;
Less stern to him who calls his coat a cŏat,
And steers his boat believing it a bŏat.
She pardoned one, our classic city's boast,
Who said at Cambridge, mŏst instead of most,
But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot
To hear a Teacher call a root a rŏot.
16.
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A Paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells—
Of the bells.