Under certain circumstances
        there are few hours
               in life more agreeable
             than the hour
              dedicated 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
            is in itself delightful.

    Those that
         I have
               in mind in beginning
              to unfold this simple history
                  offered an admirable
                      setting to an innocent pastime.

    The implements
           of the little feast
        had been
              disposed upon the lawn
                   of an old English country-house,
           in what
             I should
                  call the perfect middle
                       of a splendid summer afternoon.

    Part of the afternoon
        had waned,
           but much of it
            was left,
         and what was left
             was of the finest
                   and rarest quality.

    Real dusk
        would not
              arrive for many hours;
        but the flood of summer
               light had
             begun to ebb,
           the air had grown mellow,
         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 the chief source
                           of one's enjoyment of
                         such a scene
                           at such an hour.

    From five o'clock to eight
        is on certain
              occasions a little eternity;
        but on such an occasion
               as this the interval
            could be
                  only an eternity of pleasure.

    The persons concerned in it
        were taking their pleasure quietly,
           and they
            were not of the sex
              which is supposed
                  to furnish the regular votaries
                       of the ceremony
             I have mentioned.

    The shadows
           on the perfect lawn
        were straight and angular;
           they were the shadows
               of an old man
              sitting in a deep wicker-chair
                   near the low table
             on which the tea
                had been served,
           and of two younger men
              strolling to and fro,
         in desultory talk,
           in front of him.

    The old man
        had his cup
               in his hand;
        it was
               an unusually large cup,
           of a different pattern
               from the rest
                   of the set and
              painted in brilliant colours.

    He disposed of its contents
           with much circumspection,
         holding it
               for a long time
             close to his chin,
         with his face
               turned to the house.

    His companions
        had either finished their tea
            or were indifferent
                   to their privilege;
        they smoked cigarettes as
             they continued to stroll.

    One of them,
           from time to time,
         as he passed,
           looked with a certain attention
               at the elder man,
         who,
           unconscious of observation,
         rested his eyes
               upon the rich red front
                   of his dwelling.

    The house
         that rose beyond the lawn
            was a structure
                  to repay such consideration
                and was the most characteristic
                      object in
                           the peculiarly English picture
         I have attempted to sketch.

    It stood
           upon a low hill,
         above the river- the river
            being the Thames
                   at some
                       forty miles from London.

    A long gabled front
           of red brick,
         with the complexion
             of which time
                   and the weather
                had played
                       all sorts of pictorial tricks,
         only,
           however,
         to improve and refine it,
           presented to
               the lawn
             its patches
               of ivy,
         its clustered chimneys,
           its windows smothered in creepers.

    The house
        had a name
               and a history;
        the old gentleman
              taking his tea
            would have been delighted
                  to tell you these things:
        how it
            had been
                  built under Edward the Sixth,
           had offered a night's hospitality
               to the great Elizabeth
         (whose august person
            had extended itself
                   upon a huge,
           magnificent,
         and terribly angular bed
              which still
                  formed the principal honour
                       of the sleeping apartments),
          had been a good deal
               bruised and defaced
                   in Cromwell's wars,
           and then,
         under the Restoration,
           repaired and much enlarged;
        and how,
           finally,
         after having been remodelled and
              disfigured in the eighteenth century,
           it had
              passed into the careful