ow."

"Why, ma, yes you do. They're so fine and handsome, and high-bred and
polite, so every way superior to our gawks here in this village; why,
they'll make life different from what it was--so humdrum and commonplace,
you know--oh, you may be sure they're full of accomplishments, and
knowledge of the world, and all that, that will be an immense advantage
to society here. Don't you think so, ma?"

"Mercy on me, how should I know, and I've hardly set eyes on them yet."
After a pause she added, "They made considerable noise after they went
up."

"Noise? Why, ma, they were singing! And it was beautiful, too."

"Oh, it was well enough, but too mixed-up, seemed to me."

"Now, ma, honor bright, did you ever hear 'Greenland's Icy Mountains'
sung sweeter--now did you?"

"If it had been sung by itself, it would have been uncommon sweet, I
don't deny it; but what they wanted to mix it up with 'Old Bob Ridley'
for, I can't make out. Why, they don't go together, at all. They are
not of the same nature. 'Bob Ridley' is a common rackety slam-bang
secular song, one of the rippingest and rantingest and noisiest there is.
I am no judge of music, and I don't claim it, but in my opinion nobody
can make those two songs go together right."

"Why, ma, I thought--"

"It don't make any difference what you thought, it can't be done. They
tried it, and to my mind it was a failure. I never heard such a crazy
uproar; seemed to me, sometimes, the roof would come off; and as for the
cats--well, I've lived a many a year, and seen cats aggravated in more
ways than one, but I've never seen cats take on the way they took on last
night."

"Well, I don't think that that goes for anything, ma, because it is the
nature of cats that any sound that is unusual--"

"Unusual! You may well call it so. Now if they are going to sing duets
every night, I do hope they will both sing the same tune at the same
time, for in my opinion a duet that is made up of two different tunes is
a mistake; especially when the tunes ain't any kin to one another, that
way."

"But, ma, I think it must be a foreign custom; and it must be right too;
and the best way, because they have had every opportunity to know what is
right, and it don't stand to reason that with their education they would
do anything but what the highest musical authorities have sanctioned.
You can't help but admit that, ma."

The argument was formidably strong; the old lady could not find