Publisher's Synopsis
Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hourdedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not-some people of course never do, -the situation isin itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple historyoffered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast hadbeen disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call theperfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but muchof it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would notarrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grownmellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps thechief source of one's enjoyment of such a scene at such an ho
