They looked at each other and then at the clock with dismay.
'We must--we really MUST go on with our reading,' cried Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. 'How did we get talking about these dresses?'
'It was my fault,' said Mrs. Beecher, looking contrite.
'No, dear, it was mine,' said Maude. 'You remember it all came from my saying that Frank had gone to the ball as the Pied Piper.'
'I am going to read the very first poem that I open,' said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer remorselessly. 'I am afraid that it is almost time that I started, but we may still be able to skim over a few pages. Now then! There! Setebos! What a funny name!'
'What DOES it mean?' asked Maude.
'We shall find out, no doubt, as we proceed,' said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. 'We shall take it line by line and draw the full meaning from it. The first line is -
'Will sprawl now that the heat of day is best--'
'Who will?' asked Mrs. Beecher.
'I don't know. That's what it says.'
'The next line will explain, no doubt.'
'Flat on his--'
'Dear me, I had no idea that Browning was like this!'
'Do read it, dear.'
'I couldn't possibly think of doing so. With your permission we will pass on to the next paragraph.'
'But we vowed not to skip.'
'But why read what cannot instruct or elevate us. Let us begin this next stanza, and hope for something better. The first line is--I wonder if it really can be as it is written.'
'Do please read it!'
'Setebos and Setebos and Setebos.'
The three students looked sadly at each other. 'This is worse than anything I could have imagined,' said the reader.
'We mast skip that line.'
'But we are skipping everything.'
'It's a person's name,' said Mrs. Beecher.
'Or three persons.'
'No, only one, I think.'
'But why should he repeat it three times?'
'For emphasis!'
'Perhaps,' said Mrs. Beecher, 'it was Mr. Setebos, and Mrs. Setebos, and a little Setebos.'
'Now, if you are going to make fun, I won't read. But I think we were wrong to say that we would take it line by line. It would be easier sentence by sentence.'
'Quite so.'
'Then we will include the next line, which finishes the sentence. It is, "thinketh he dwelleth in the cold of the moon."'
'Then it WAS only one Setebos!' cried Maude.
'So it appears. It is easy to understand if one will only put it into ordinary language. This person Setebos was under the impression that his life was spent in the moonlight.'
'But what nonsense it is!' cried Mrs. Beecher. Mrs. Hunt Mortimer looked at her reproachfully. 'It is very easy to call everything which we do not understand "nonsense,"' said she. 'I have no doubt that Browning had a profound meaning in this.'
'What was it, then?'
Mrs. Hunt Mortimer looked at the clock.
'I am very sorry to have to go,' said she, 'but really I have no choice in the matter. Just as we were getting on so nicely--it is really most vexatious. You'll come to my house next Wednesday, Mrs. Crosse, won't you? And you also, Mrs. Beecher. Good-bye, and thanks for SUCH a pleasant afternoon!'
But her skirts had hardly ceased to rustle in the passage before the Browning Society had been dissolved by a two-thirds' vote of the total membership.
'What is the use?' cried Mrs. Beecher. 'Two lines have positively made my head ache, and there are two volumes.'
'We must change our poet.'
'His verbosity!' cried Mrs. Beecher.
'His Setebosity!' cried Maude.
'And dear Mrs. Hunt Mortimer pretending to like him! Shall we propose Tennyson next week?'
'It would be far better.'
'But Tennyson is quite simple, is he not?'
'Perfectly.'
'Then why should we meet to discuss him if there is nothing to discuss?'
'You mean that we might as well each read him for herself.'
'I think it would be easier.'
'Why, of course it would.'
And so after one hour of precarious life, Mrs. Hunt Mortimer's Mutual Improvement Society for the elucidation of Browning came to an untimely end.
CHAPTER XVII--AN INVESTMENT
'I want your advice, Maude.'
She was looking very sweet and fresh in the morning sunlight.