Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-12-18
INFORMAL FIVE O'CLOCK TEAS.
A Custom OF Provincial English Towns
that II Becoming Americanixed.

that II Becoming Amertcanixed.
An American visiting English provincial
towns, says Mrs 8. 7. Sherman, in Table TdLk
for December, finds the universal custom Of
serving informal afternoon tea one Of the most
charming features Of foreign experience.
In communities where afternoon tea is served,
calling naturally confines itself to the hours
between and 5 O'Clock; and to enter draw
ing-room between those hours 10 to enter upon
a scene of such grace and cheer as at once
arouses the cumulative spirit and You pledge
yourself in cup of tea to institute 5-o'clock
tea table at your own hearth, or in your own
bay window as soon as you shall return home
The moment greetings are over and the
hostess has sat cozily down to a chat with the
latest conner, the daughter last out Of the
nursery hastens to bring you cup of steaming
tea and cracker-here called biscuit
small enough to rest snugly on the rim of your
saucer. Whether you receive napkin or not
is optional with your hostess, but whether you
drink your tea with cream or not is not OPP
tional with yourself, for it il the soft padding
poured gently the first thing into the bed Of
each frail cup for the fragrant beverage to fall
upon. On the little tray which bears your
cup to you IL tiny silver sugar-bowl and
tongs, and the young Hebe ministering
to 2.es sSp ss sshmpe arrnsy through the
two?" and slips the cube of sugar into your cup
for you in careful accordance with your prefer
ence. If the cream jug appears at all on the
tray it is so you may add more If you desire
Then the tray is returned to the o'clock table
and the biscuits are served you from some
fanciful receptacle. They are very crisp small
crackers, the shape Of lady-fngers, and in win
ter are generally kept in a dry. capacious.
round teapot on the fender in the interests of
crispness. Or they may lie temptingly in a
shallow wicker basket, fancifully woven and
gaily stained. or they may be served on a large.
frail, gaudy plate OF Japanese porcelain.
very pretty fender seen in some drawing
rooms Is long, very narrow box of carved
wood about the weight and width of the kueel-
ing-bench OF prei-dieu, but as long as the
hearth rug. This fender is cushioned with a
firm, rather than soft, cushion. usually of scar
let, worked in gold. or Of tawny terra-cotta. or
nasturtium tints, and is set along the center of
the hearth rug, about two feet out from the
hearth. 1t supplements, not supplants. the
metal fender, and is a most convenient height
for gracefully resting and warming the feet. 1t
Is a sort OF cooperative footstool, and eyery-
body, at least every woman, knows how con-
ducive it is to good conUaderie, when all gather
round for chat, with their feet resting on the
same fender. Sometimes the teapot is set in
the exact center of this narrow symmetrical
fender, where it catches the focused heat from
the CRATE and keeps refreshingly hot.
Generally slender, tall vase with a cut
flower or two appears on the table and some
times crisp pile of CREEPY Chinese rice-paper
napkinsi but linen napery seldom appears. To
stand up and set your empty, or twice-empty,
cup upon the table, is a graceful preliminary
to leave-taking. and to ask your hostess what
particular brand of tea she uses is a question
with an origin in the realms of courtesy and
compliment and not in the low sphere of curl
osity.
SOuchong, with a little dash of orange pekoe.
is the favorite English mixture. Souchong is
a strong black tea and pekoe is an uncolored
favoring tea. To the English palate. green
tea is as obnoxious as a green crab-fsh.
The afternoon-tea habit does not seem to
domesticate itself 80 naturally in American
small towns as in the seaboard cities, vet it is
apractice which gains graces from a country
setting and it does not take any special gift Of
imagination to perceive that if the custom is
lovely and graceful in dark, heavy city draw
ing-rooms, it will be lovelier and more grace
full in bright village and suburban parlors.
where sunrays can slant into the windows.
boughs tap against the panes, and wood fires,
perhaps, illuminate the hearth
IL is probable that when O'Clock tea shall
have become a universal American custom. il
will gain one added grace which it lacks In
English hands: it will be presided over by
hostesses clad in the daintiest and loyeliest of
gowns, for the tea-gown is a thing of grace
that commends itself more to the French taste
OF American women than to the stiff, tram
mefed taste Of the English woman who. it
must be confessed, is usually as conspicuously
ill dressed in the house as she is well dressed
on the street.