sarcastically accounted for by supposing that 'sixpences grew on the
bents of Cross Farm;' while Mr. Hackit, expressing his views more
literally, reminded his wife that 'money breeds money'. Mr. and Mrs.
Hackit, from the neighbouring farm, are Mrs. Patten's guests this
evening; so is Mr. Pilgrim, the doctor from the nearest market-town, who,
though occasionally affecting aristocratic airs, and giving late dinners
with enigmatic side-dishes and poisonous port, is never so comfortable as
when he is relaxing his professional legs in one of those excellent
farmhouses where the mice are sleek and the mistress sickly. And he is at
this moment in clover.

For the flickering of Mrs. Patten's bright fire is reflected in her
bright copper tea-kettle, the home-made muffins glisten with an inviting
succulence, and Mrs. Patten's niece, a single lady of fifty, who has
refused the most ineligible offers out of devotion to her aged aunt, is
pouring the rich cream into the fragrant tea with a discreet liberality.

Reader! _did_ you ever taste such a cup of tea as Miss Gibbs is this
moment handing to Mr. Pilgrim? Do you know the dulcet strength, the
animating blandness of tea sufficiently blended with real farmhouse
cream? No--most likely you are a miserable town-bred reader, who think of
cream as a thinnish white fluid, delivered in infinitesimal pennyworths
down area steps; or perhaps, from a presentiment of calves' brains, you
refrain from any lacteal addition, and rasp your tongue with unmitigated
bohea. You have a vague idea of a milch cow as probably a white-plaster
animal standing in a butterman's window, and you know nothing of the
sweet history of genuine cream, such as Miss Gibbs's: how it was this
morning in the udders of the large sleek beasts, as they stood lowing a
patient entreaty under the milking-shed; how it fell with a pleasant
rhythm into Betty's pail, sending a delicious incense into the cool air;