It would be very pleasant to describe the tea-table; but the truth is,
it did not pretend to offer a plethoric banquet to the guests. The Widow
had not visited at the mansion-houses for nothing, and she had learned
there that an overloaded tea-table may do well enough for farm-hands
when they come in at evening from their work and sit down unwashed in
their shirt-sleeves, but that for decently bred people such an insult to
the memory of a dinner not yet half-assimilated is wholly inadmissible.
There was no lump of meat on the table, no wedge of cheese, no dish
of pickles. Everything was delicate, and almost everything of fair
complexion: white bread and biscuits, frosted and sponge cake, cream,
honey, straw-colored butter; only a shadow here and there, where the
fire had crisped and browned the surfaces of a stack of dry toast, or
where a preserve had brought away some of the red sunshine of the last
year's summer. The Widow shall have the credit of her well-ordered
tea-table, also of her bountiful cream-pitchers; for it is well known
that city-people find cream a very scarce luxury in a good many
country-houses of more pretensions than Hyacinth Cottage. There are no
better maxims for ladies who give tea-parties than these:--
_Cream is thicker than water._
_Large heart never loved little cream-pot._
There is a common feeling in genteel families that the third meal of
the day is not so essential a part of the daily bread as to require any
especial acknowledgment to the Providence that bestows it.
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