FOUND IN COTTAGES 



173 



The plain round mahogany tray is a nice example of one 

 of the simple uses to which this wood was put at about the 

 same date. The light has caught the grain in the photograph 

 and makes it look rougher than it is. In reality it has a 

 good surface that responds well to careful polishing, and is an 

 admirable ground to its burden of silver and china tea-things. 

 For, after its many years of cottage life, where, to judge by 



Lacquer and Mahogany Trays 



its good condition, it must have stood unused upon some safe 

 shelf, it is restored to use in a house of a better class. 



It is a great pity that a very pretty kind of tea-tray of 

 black papier-mache, with a decoration of roses and other 

 flowers, partly of mother - o' - pearl and partly painted, 

 evidently the simpler descendant of these older trays, and 

 formerly in frequent use in humble and middle-class dwell- 

 ings, should have gone out of make and use. 



Odds and ends of pretty china and glass had also drifted 



