There was a woman at the top of the stairs
who had the charge of the clock room. This woman showed the party the wheels of the clock, which were of prodigious magnitude.[E]There were three bells—two that were called the small bells, though they were really very large, and one which was called the large bell. This last, Rollo said, was a monster.
"The small bells," said the woman, pointing up to the bells, which Rollo and Jennie saw far above their heads, in the midst of a maze of beams and rafters, "chime the quarter hours. The great bell strikes the hours, and tolls in case of the death of any member of the royal family."
"I don't see any thing very remarkable about them," said Rollo to his mother. "They are only three common bells."
"No," replied Mrs. Holiday, "the things themselves that are to be seen are nothing. It is only the curious places that we climb up to to see them, and the thought that we are in the veritable old St. Paul's."
After having talked some little time with the woman about the clock and the bells, and about the visitors that come from day to day to see
them, the party descended again, by the dark and narrow stairway, to the great corridor by which they came to this part of the church, in order to visit the parts of the edifice connected with the dome and cupola, which are, in some respects, more interesting than all the rest.
