English people have original ideas of posing.
I cease to wonder that the English are only vaguely interested in their viands, for who could definitely consider the flavor of tea when in full view was a rising terrace leading to a magnificent old mansion of the correct and approved period of architecture, and covered with ivy that may have been planted by an Historical Character? or, looking in another direction, one could perceive a formal garden, with fountain and sun-dial; another turn of the head brought into view a unique rose orchard, unmatched even in England; while toward the only point of the compass left, rolled hills and dales that made many an English landscape painter famous.
Add to this the inconsequent and always delightful small-talk of English society, spiced here and there by their dreadful expletive, “My word!” and enlivened by the English humor, which is, to those who care for it, the most truly humorous thing on earth,—and I, for one, am quite ready to concede that these conditions combine to make Afternoon Tea a Spangle of Existence.
Miss Anna was certainly a godsend. It was due to her comprehension of the “human warious,” and her experienced knowledge of London, that I was enabled to revisit places I had never seen before.
When she calmly asked me to spend a day sightseeing in the “City,” I gasped. But when she reminded me that I ought to look once more on some of the old landmarks of London, I was flattered into a gracious acceptance.
One soft, purry August morning we started out. I was supposed to be absolutely under her direction, but when she remarked casually that we would take a ’bus, I rebelled.
“I have never been in or on the horrid things,” I protested, “and I never intend to!”