“I cannot vie with Marius in offering you the throne of George Eliot,” said our host, “but here is a very comfortable arrangement once occupied by Queen Anne.”
“Yes,” commented our hostess; “Arthur went threadbare to have it, because Alexander Pope happened to have written:
Here, thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take,—and sometimes tea.
In fact, I once arrived just in time to prevent him from buying Leigh Hunt’s spectacles just because—what was it Leigh Hunt said of tea, Arthur? I never can remember.”
“‘Oh, heavens! to sip that most exquisite cup of delight was bliss almost too great for earth; a thousand years of rapture all concentrated into the space of a minute, as if the joy of all the world had been skimmed for my peculiar drinking, I should rather say imbibing, for to have swallowed that legend like an ordinary beverage without tasting every drop would have been a sacrilege.’”
“No wonder you were keen for the spectacles!” I cried.
“But I’ve never heard of Leigh Hunt’s spectacles! I don’t believe he ever wore them. You have to make allowance for the attitude my better half holds toward tea!”
“No, my dear,” our hostess replied sweetly, “you know I love these things as much as you do.” It was true.
Now, while we did not talk tea throughout all our little visit, we did eagerly examine the old tea-furniture. There was Delft, pottery, and porcelain of all sorts, marvelous tea-caddies, a collection of prints and caricatures of the Boston Tea Party.
“There were other tea-parties over there in America,” our host explained; “you neglect them terribly! There was the ‘Tea-party’ of Philadelphia in 1773, the ‘Tea-party’ of Edenton in 1774 and the same year the ‘Tea-parties’ of Cumberland County and of Greenwich, New Jersey. I have them all in the library!”