“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 any way around it; so, after thinking it over awhile she gave in with a sigh of discontent, and admitted that the daughter’s position was probably correct.  Being vanquished, she had no mind to continue the topic at that disadvantage, and was about to seek a change when a change came of itself.  A footstep was heard on the stairs, and she said: 

“There-he’s coming!”

“They, ma—­you ought to say they—­it’s nearer right.”

The new lodger, rather shoutingly dressed but looking superbly handsome, stepped with courtly carnage into the trim little breakfast-room and put out all his cordial arms at once, like one of those pocket-knives with a multiplicity of blades, and shook hands with the whole family simultaneously.  He was so easy and pleasant and hearty that all embarrassment presently thawed away and disappeared, and a cheery feeling of friendliness and comradeship took its place.  He—­or preferably they —­were asked to occupy the seat of honor at the foot of the table.  They consented with thanks, and carved the beefsteak with one set of their hands while they distributed it at the same time with the other set.