222 



THE GREEN-HOUSE. 



over the floor as single objects. But in more select 

 entertainments, a proportionate attention is paid to 

 their arrangement. During dinner a few pots of 

 fruit-bearing shrubs, or trees with their fruit ripe, 

 are ranged along the centre of the table, from which, 

 during the dessert, the fruit is gathered by the com- 

 pany. Sometimes a row of orange trees, or standard 

 peach trees, or cherries, or all of them, in fruit, sur- 

 round the table of the guests ; one plant being placed 

 exactly behind each chair, leaving room for the ser- 

 vants to approach between. Sometimes only one 

 tall handsome tree is placed behind the master, and 

 another behind the mistress ; and sometimes only a 

 few pots of lesser articles are placed on the side-board, 

 or here and there round the room. 



The drawing-room is sometimes laid out like an 

 orange-grove, by distributing tall orange trees all 

 over it in regular quincunx, so that the heads of the 

 trees may be higher than those of the company : seats 

 are also neatly made over the pots and boxes, to con- 

 ceal them, and serve the purpose of chairs. One or 

 two cages with nightingales and canary-birds are 

 distributed among the branches, and where there is 

 a want of real fruit, that is supplied by art. Some- 

 times also art supplies the entire tree, which during 

 artificial illumination is hardly recognised as a work 

 of art,^ and a very few real trees and flowers inter- 

 spersed with these made ones, will keep up the odour 

 and the illusion to nature. 



Sometimes large picture galleries are laid out in 



