site, and every time the pretty girl nearest the hearth-rug lifted the huge tailor’s shears, appropriated to her use, the flame flashed up and played over them till they seemed crusted with jewels. One young lady, with a very sweet voice, sung “I’d be a Butterfly,” with tumultuous applause. Miss Narissa exercised her sharp voice in “I won’t be a Nun,” and two young ladies, who had no places at the quilt, read conversation cards by the fire.
Toward night-fall, Miss Elizabeth, who had hovered about the quilt at intervals all the afternoon, appeared from the middle room and whispered mysteriously to Narissa, who got up and went out. After a few minutes the amiable sisters returned, and with smiling hospitality announced that tea was ready.
The door was flung wide open, and a long table, covered to the carpet with birds-eye diaper, stood triumphantly in view. We moved toward the door, our garments mingling together, and some with linked arms, laughing as they went.
Miss Elizabeth stood at the head of the table, supported by a huge Britannia teapot and conical-shaped sugar-bowl, which had officiated at her grandmother’s wedding supper. She waved her hand with a grace peculiarly her own, and we glided to our chairs, spread out our pocket-handkerchiefs, and waited patiently while Miss Elizabeth held the Britannia teapot in a state of suspension and asked each one separately, in the same sweet tone, if she took sugar and cream. Then there was a travelling of small-sized China cups down the table. As each cup reached its destination, the recipient bathed her spoon in the warm contents, timidly moistened her lips, and waited till her neighbour was served. Then two plates of warm biscuit started an opposition route on each side the board, followed by a train of golden butter, dried beef and sago cheese.
About this time Miss Narissa began to make a commotion among a pile of little glass plates that formed her division of command. Four square dishes of currant jelly, quince preserves, and clarified peaches, were speedily yielding up their contents. The little plates flashed to and fro, up and down, then became stationary, each one gleaming up from the snow-white cloth like a fragment of ice whereon a handful of half-formed rubies had been flung. There
