r here and there; and the reflection of the statuettes on the
further side; it was prettier than ever you can think."

"I reckon it must ha' been; but I don't see the use of it," said uncle
Tim.

"That wasn't all," Lois went on. "Everybody had his own salt-cellar."

"Table must ha' been full, I should say."

"No, it was not full at all; there was plenty of room for everything,
and that allowed every pretty thing to be seen. And those salt-cellars
were a study. They were delicious little silver figures--every one
different from the others--and each little figure presented the salt in
something. Mine was a little girl, with her apron all gathered up, as
if to hold nuts or apples, and the salt was in her apron. The one next
to her was a market-woman with a flat basket on her head, and the salt
was in the basket. Another was a man bowing, with his hat in his hand;
the salt was in the hat. I could not see them all, but each one seemed
prettier than the other. One was a man standing by a well, with a
bucket drawn up, but full of salt, not water. A very pretty one was a
milkman with a pail."

Uncle Tim was now reduced to silence, but Charity remarked that she
could not understand where the dishes were--the dinner.

"It was somewhere else. It was not on the table at all. The waiters
brought the things round. There were six waiters, handsomely dressed in
black, and with white silk gloves."

"White silk gloves!" echoed Charity. "Well, I _do_ think the way some
people live is just a sin and a shame!"

"How did you know what there was for dinner?" inquired Mrs. Marx now.
"I shouldn't like to make my dinner of boiled beef, if there was
partridges comin'. And when there's plum-puddin' I always like to know
it beforehand."

"We knew everything beforehand, aunt Anne. There were beautifully
painted little pieces of white silk on everybody's plate, with all the
dishes named; only many, most of them, were French names, and I was
none the wiser for them."

"Can't they call good victuals by English names?" asked uncle Tim.
"What's the sense o' that? How was anybody to know what he was eatin'?"

"O they all knew," said Lois. "Except me."

"I'll bet you were the only sensible one o' the lot," said the old
gentleman.

"Then at every plate there was a beautiful cut glass bottle, something
like a decanter, with ice water, and over the mouth of it a tumbler to
match. Besides that, there were at each plate five or six other goblets