“Nelly, we will have tea now,” he says; and he rings the bell, and then comes up to the child again, and, turns her face up, kisses her suddenly, and seats himself at a distance with his chin upon his hand. Then Mrs. Parrot came in, armed with the tray, which she placed upon the table, while she challenged her lodger’s admiration by lightly lifting her gray eyes and smirking. Yes, it was very beautiful. The bouquet made the room odoriferous at once; the birds of paradise looked splendid; the cups were elegant enough to induce one to go on drinking tea with stubborn disregard of the nervous system, for hours and hours together, if only for an excuse to handle them and have them under the eye. In order to bring little Nelly’s head a little above the level of the table, Holdsworth piled three or four of the folios on a chair, on which he seated her; and that the two dolls might be seen to advantage, he very ingeniously tied them together, and set them on a chair, leaning against the table, with a plate and a slice of bread-and-butter before them; whereat Nelly laughed rapturously, clapping her hands and filling the room with sweet sounds. It was all Fairyland, these cups and toys and cakes and what not, to the little girl, whose tea at home was often no more than a slice of dry bread, when her step-father had drunk away the money he should have given to his wife, and left her without the means to purchase an ounce of butter. The sun was at the back of the house, and its rules of yellow light flooded the floor at the extremity of the apartment, and flung a golden haze over that portion of the room where the table stood. There was something so charming in the scene thus delicately lighted, that Mrs. Parrot, who had been struggling with her modesty for some minutes, while she fidgeted over the plates and dishes, suddenly exclaimed: “I humbly beg parding for the liberty, sir, but would you mind mother just takin’ one peep? She came into the kitchen while I was dressin’ the tray, an’ I told her what was goin’ forward, an’ I think it ’ud do her heart good to see this beautiful show.” “Let her come by all means,” replied Holdsworth, touched and diverted by the perfect simplicity of these people. Presently fell a respectful knock, and Mrs. Parrot re-entered, followed by a Roman nose that came and vanished like an optical delusion near the handle of the door. “Come in, mother; the gentleman’s kind enough to say you may,” said Mrs. Parrot; and in faltered the old woman, dropping an aged courtesy, and making her spectacles chatter in their wooden case as she strove to withdraw them. “Ain’t this a picter, mother?” “Niver see anything to aquil it,” replied the old lady, putting on her spectacles and gazing around her with many a convulsive motion of the head. “Why, Sairey, them’s our best cups!” “Yes, I told you I was usin’ them. Don’t you see the little gal, mother?”