els and old relics in this room.

The party also went up into the clock tower, by means of a very narrow,
steep, and winding staircase, where there was only room for one to go at
a time. The steps were of stone, but they were greatly worn away by the
footsteps of the thousands of visitors that had ascended them.

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.

[E] The works of this clock are on such a scale that the pendulum is
fourteen feet long, and the weight at the end weighs more than one
hundred pounds. The minute hand is eight feet long, and weighs
seventy-five pounds.

"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.

CHAPTER X.

THE DOME OF ST. PAUL'S.

The dome of St. Paul's rises above the centre of the church, over the
intersection of the arms of the cross. There are, in fact, two domes--an
interior and an exterior one; and there are three galleries connected
with them which strangers visit. The first of these galleries is an
interior one. It passes round the church on the inside, just at the base
of the interior dome. Our party were going first to visit this gallery.

They accordingly walked back through the whole length of the long