to describe the tea-table; but in reality, it
did not pretend to offer a plethoric banquet to the guests. The Widow
had not visited 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 shirtsleeves, but that for decently bred people such an insult to
the memory of a dinner not yet half-assimilated is wholly inadmissible.
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 maims 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 which bestows it. Very devout
people, who would never sit down to a breakfast or a dinner without the
grace before meat which honors the Giver of it, feel as if they thanked
Heaven enough for their tea and toast by partaking of them cheerfully
without audible petition or ascription. But the Widow was not exactly
mansion-house-bred, and so thought it necessary to give the Reverend
Doctor a peculiar look which he understood at once as inviting his
professional services. He, therefore, uttered a few simple words of
gratitude, very quietly,--much to the satisfaction of some of the
guests, who had expected one of those elaborate effusions, with rolling
up of the eyes and rhetorical accents, so frequent with eloquent divines
when they address their Maker in genteel company.

Everybody began talking with the person sitting next at hand. Mr.
Bernard naturally enough turned his attention first to the Widow; but
somehow or other the right side of the Widow seemed to be more
wide awake than the left side, next him, and he resigned her to
the courtesies of Mr. Dudley V