Читать книгу Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Vol.1&2). Letters & Travel Sketches from Europe онлайн

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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 teakettles" 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 the gallery, 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 Antislavery 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 seventy-second psalm in the old Scotch version.