48 TEA EQUIPAGE. 



the table, and then the Proserpine, as if the heat had melted 

 and softened her down into an attendant Hebe, proceeded to a 

 corner cupboard, drew forth the tray and tea-things, placed and 

 replaced them, as if by dint of clatter to reconcile the dis- 

 cordant hues of basin, cup, and saucer, and in process of time 

 and torment set them on the table. Still she lingered, perhaps 

 awaiting recompense of some sort, for such surprising works of 

 supererogation. At all events the poet seemed to think so, for he 

 drew from his pocket a shilling (we believe it was his last), and 

 put it into the Hebe's swarthy hand. A curtsey lower than 

 the back garret had ever witnessed, and the recipient's speedy 

 exit were the donor's reward. Mechanically he proceeded to 

 make his tea, in other words to set afloat a tiny raft in a tepid 

 ocean, then resumed his position and tried also to unravel his 

 gilded thread of thought ; but alas ! it had been snapped 

 asunder by the lumbering slip-shod tread of the workaday witch, 

 his bright visions had all faded before her evil eye, and the 

 silence which her confounded clatter had put to flight was not 

 to return again ; for scarcely were his fretted nerves composed, 

 and the creaking stair relieved from her heavy tread, when from 

 some point unseen arose the voice of an abominable My. Buz 

 buz buz louder than buz was ever heard before. The poet 

 looked towards the small window of liis sky-parlour which, 

 libelling the term, admitted, from where he sat, only a view of 

 sun-baked roofs, surmounted by the broad side of a lofty stack 

 of chimneys, and though wide open, scarcely a mouthful of the 



