United States or Burkina Faso ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The women waited on the table, not in the sense of changing plates and bringing fresh courses, for all the dinner was before them, but replenishing cups and glasses when they were empty, refilling the vegetable-tureens and bread-plates, cutting the pies and cake and passing them around, and serving out the canned peaches and the custard in small dishes.
He had a peculiar aptitude for the lathe, and some of his bread-plates were really as neatly executed as any that could be seen in London. He had even turned in poplar some vases, which found their way to a drawing-master, and were used as models.
There would be slices of cold meat spread on a platter of parsley; and the thinnest slices of bread-and-butter on the best bread-plates, and frosted cake; and, most likely, peach or strawberry preserves from the jam-cupboard.
When one recalls the aspect of our hotel tables at home the bread-plates left with their piles of cold, uneatable corn-bread, and heavy, chilled muffins and sodden toast uneaten, uncared-for and wasted; the huge steak, with its scrap of tenderloin carefully scolloped out, and the rest left to be thrown away; the broiled chicken the legs scorned in favor of the more toothsome breast; the half-emptied plates of omelettes and fried potatoes, one realizes how low prices for board in Paris are still compatible with the increased price of provisions, and why we must pay five dollars at home for accommodations for which we expend two here.
The man who had presented the box laughed heartiest of all; then rose. First he bowed to her mother, who acknowledged his salute graciously; next he turned to her father, whose pale face softened; last of all, he addressed her: "Miss Gwendolyn," said he, "a toast!" Gwendolyn looked at those bread-plates which were nearest her. There was no toast in sight, only some very nice dinner-rolls.
I was carving some stick-heads, and bread-plates in wood the only thing I could do to put a little more than bread, into our own platters," with a grin, "and whistling, whistling, for if you can't be gay, it is best to play at it.... Well, that day into our courtyard there was shown a tall man and I knew him at once, though he was different enough in his fine coat, and hat and boots, from the time when I had last seen him, when he was like me, in rags and with a woollen cap on his head, and no stockings under his shoes I knew him at once!
Word Of The Day