has part; I speak of tea where one is at home in quite another than the worldly sense.  To admit mere strangers to your tea-table is profanation; on the other hand, English hospitality has here its kindliest aspect; never is friend more welcome than when he drops in for a cup of tea.  Where tea is really a meal, with nothing between it and nine o’clock supper, it is—­again in the true sense—­the homeliest meal of the day.  Is it believable that the Chinese, in who knows how many centuries, have derived from tea a millionth part of the pleasure or the good which it has brought to England in the past one hundred years?

I like to look at my housekeeper when she carries in the tray.  Her mien is festal, yet in her smile there is a certain gravity, as though she performed an office which honoured her.  She has dressed for the evening; that is to say, her clean and seemly attire of working hours is exchanged for garments suitable to fireside leisure; her cheeks are warm, for she has been making fragrant toast.  Quickly her eye glances about my room, but only to have the pleasure of noting that all is in order; inconceivable that anything serious should need doing at this hour of the day.  She brings the little table within the glow of the hearth, so that I can help myself without changing my easy position.  If she speaks, it will only be a pleasant word or two; should she have anything important to say, the moment will be after tea, not before it; this she knows by instinct.  Perchance she may just stoop to sweep back a cinder which has fallen since, in my absence, she looked after the fire; it is done quickly and silently.  Then, still smiling, she withdraws, and I know that she is going to enjoy her own tea, her own toast, in the warm, comfortable, sweet-smelling kitchen.

VII.

One has heard much condemnation of the English kitchen.  Our typical cook is spoken of as a gross, unimaginative creature, capable only of roasting or seething.  Our table is said to be such as would weary or revolt any but gobbet-bolting carnivores.  We are told that our bread is the worst in Europe, an indigestible paste; that our vegetables are diet rather for the hungry animal than for discriminative man; that our warm beverages, called coffee and tea, are so carelessly or ignorantly brewed that they preserve no simple virtue of the drink as it is known in other lands.  To be sure, there is no lack of evidence to explain such censure.  The class which provides our servants is undeniably coarse and stupid, and its handiwork of every kind too often bears the native stamp.  For all that, English victuals are, in quality, the best in the world, and English cookery is the wholesomest and the most appetizing known to any temperate clime.