ny--and
the man inside so happy all day slicing them with those wonderful long
knives (which, of course, the superior class of reader has never seen)
worn away to a veritable thread, a mere wire, but keen as Excalibur.
Beauty used to calculate in her quaint way how much steel was worn away
with each pound of ham, and how much therefore went to the sandwich. And
what an artist was the carver! What a true eye! what a firm, flexible
wrist! never a shaving of fat too much--he was too great an artist for
that. Then there were those dear little cream cheeses, and those little
brown jugs of yellow cream come all the way from Devonshire--you could
hear the cows lowing across the rich pasture, and hear the milkmaids
singing and the milk whizzing into the pail, as you looked at them.

And then those perfectly lovely sausages--I beg the reader's pardon! I
forgot that the very mention of the word smacks of vulgarity. Yet, all
the same, I venture to think that a secret taste for sausages among the
upper classes is more widespread than we have any idea of. I confess
that Beauty and her poet were at first ashamed of admitting their vulgar
frailty to each other. They needed to know each other very well first.
Yet there is nothing, when once confessed, that brings two people so
close as--a taste for sausages.

'You darling!' exclaimed Beauty, with something like tears in her voice,
when her poet first admitted this touch of nature--and then next moment
they were in fits of laughter that a common taste for a very 'low' food
should bring tears to their eyes! But such are the vagaries of love--as
you will know, if you know anything about it--'vulgar,' no doubt, though
only the vulgar would so describe them--for it is only vulgarity that
is always 'refined.'

Then there was the florist's to visit. What beautiful trades some people
ply! To sell flowers is surely like dealing in fairies. Beautiful must
grow the hands that wire them, and sweet the flower-girl's every
thought!

There remained but the wine merchant's, or, had we not better say at
once, the grocer's, for our lovers could afford no rarer vintages than
Tintara or the golden burgundy of Australia; and it is wonderful to
think what a sense of festivity one of those portly colonial flagons
lent to their little dining-table. Sometimes, I may confide, when they
wanted to feel very dissipated, and were _very_ rich, they would allow
themselves a small bottle of Benedictine--and you sh