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My first small town lecture was another financial failure, and in the hall I paid and dismissed that highly respectable incubus my agent. That night I slept in a hotel, and going to a bed which had not been properly ventilated, wondered if it could be my duty to breast that storm of popular frenzy. Could I at any time be required to drink tea out of a coarse delf cup and sleep in such a bed?

The establishment which we set up was suited to our circumstances: a log-house, with two small rooms; a bed, a table, a half dozen chairs, a half dozen knives and forks, a half dozen spoons; everything by half dozens; a little delf ware; everything in a small way; we were so poor, but then so happy!

"Have you a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah! here is one, marked 3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well; when your mamma's birthday comes again, we must buy her another. That is some months to wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the year round, is better than a poor geranium; and a word that is never broken, is better than a piece of delf."

You said you didn't want 'em trampin' in dirty boots!" It took a quarter of an hour to replace them. Over the fragments of a blue delf bowl Mrs. Brown sighed deeply. "I wish you'd broken anything but this, William." "Well," he excused himself, "you said things do get broken removin'. You said so yourself! I didn't break it on purpose. It jus' got broken removin'."

To make an ORANGE PIE. Take half a dozen seville oranges, chip them very fine as you would do for preserving, make a little hole in the top, and scope out all the meat, as you would do an apple, you must boil them whilst they are tender, and shift them two or three times to take off the bitter taste; take six or eight apples, according as they are in bigness, pare and slice them, and put to them part of the pulp of your oranges, and pick out the strings and pippens, put to them half a pound of fine powder sugar, so boil it up over a slow fire, as you would do for puffs, and fill your oranges with it; they must be baked in a deep delf dish with no paste under them; when you put them into your dish put under them three quarters of a pound of fine powder sugar, put in as much water as will wet your sugar, and put your oranges with the open side uppermost; it will take about an hour and half baking in a slow oven; lie over them a light puff-paste; when you dish it up take off the lid, and turn the oranges in the pie, cut the lid in sippets, and set them at an equal distance, to serve it up.

There was a large gash in his right hand, from which he picked a piece of delf, and as he tied the wound up with a pocket-handkerchief he partly quieted the expostulating guide by assuring him that everything would be paid for. And taking Kate's arm, he hobbled out of the place.

There were knives and forks beautifully shaped and fashioned, mingled with the horn-handled ware of the kitchen; silver plate and common pewter side by side; priceless glass and common tumblers; fragments of beautiful china and here and there white delf, borrowed from a neighbouring farm.

Browne's pride was redoubled; but she made so many preparations, and so much fuss, and gave herself so much trouble, that she was positively ill during Erminia's stay; and Maggie felt that she must henceforward deny herself the pleasure of having her friend for a guest, as her mother could not be persuaded from attempting to provide things in the same abundance and style as that to which Erminia was accustomed at home; whereas, as Nancy shrewdly observed, the young lady did not know if she was eating jelly, or porridge, or whether the plates were common delf or the best China, so long as she was with her dear Miss Maggie.

Which is the way? 'Take the first turn to the right, and you're in Church Street; but there may be bits of the delf in the wound? 'I shall see to that. But how strong you are; you're like a lion. You mustn't struggle like that next time. At the suggestion that there was going to be a next time Kate's face clouded, but she was so alarmed for his safety that it was only for a moment.

"Oh, let me help you!" said Jasmine, dancing up to her: "I hate washing china, or delf, or whatever you call it, after people have eaten, but I like wiping it if the cloths are clean. Poppy, I have come to you about a most delicious and important scheme." "Lor, Miss Jasmine," said Poppy, her fingers trembling violently, and the large dish which she was washing nearly slipping out of them.