"Fighting for your home!" they laughed to one another as they clapped. Home was the catchword of the times. Jenny Lind was singing nightly:
"Midt bleasures undt balacess——"
and three fourths of all the songs not of the opera were of home and its ties. What the word might exactly signify in this case made little matter; on her lips, from her breast, it meant human kindness, maiden innocence, young love; meant courage, fidelity, the right, the true, the beautiful, the good; meant anything, everything, which she herself, shining there above the footlights like a star in the sunset, their darling of the hour, could be fancied to stand for; meant, anyhow, the twins' war-song turned into a peace-and-joy song.
"Tsh-sh-sh! let her go on!" And she went on: she, Noah's ark, and the Votaress, all three, together:
"Den come de buck-ram and de ewe——"
"What? what's that?" They leaned and whispered right and left. "New words! new words!"
"Den come de buck-ram and de ewe——"
"Why—she must 'a' made those words, herself!"
Not she. She knew no better than to believe them the improvisations of the Gilmores.
"Den come de buck-ram and de ewe