"Looking-glass!" cried uncle Tim.
"Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous?" said Charity.
"Looking-glass to set the hot dishes on?" said Mrs. Marx, to whom this story seemed new.
"No; not to set anything on. It took up the whole centre of the table. Round the edge of this looking-glass, all round, was a border or little fence of solid silver, about six or eight inches high; of beautiful wrought open-work; and just within this silver fence, at intervals, stood most exquisite little white marble statues, about a foot and a half high. There must have been a dozen of them; and anything more beautiful than the whole thing was, you cannot imagine."
"I should think they'd have been awfully in the way," remarked Charity.
"Not at all; there was room enough all round outside for the plates and glasses."
"The looking-glass, I suppose, was for the pretty ladies to see themselves in!"
"Quite mistaken, uncle Tim; one could not see the reflection of oneself; only bits of one's opposite neighbours; little flashes of colour 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."