[213]
the arrangements were altogether different from any I had ever seen.
There were narrow tables stretched up and down the whole extent of the great hall, and every person had an appointed seat.
These tables were set out with cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, etc., and when the proper time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the whole multitude actually took tea together, without the least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.
There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups and teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on. It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help wondering what sort of a teapot that must be in which all this tea for two thousand people was made.
Truly, as Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the “father of all the tea-kettles” to boil it in. I could not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.
We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery.
Our tea-table stretched quite across, and we drank tea in sight of all the people.
By we, I mean a great number of ministers and their wives, and ladies of the Anti-Slavery Society, besides our party, and the friends whom I have mentioned before.
All seemed to be enjoying themselves.
After tea they sang a few verses of the seventysecond psalm in the old Scotch version.
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Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1889.
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