"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.