CHAPTER II. 
DINNER-TABLE DECORATIONS. 
When summer comes, the little children play 
In the churchyard of our cathedral gray, 
Busy as morning bees, and gathering flowers, 
In the brief sunshine ; they, of coming hours 
Reck not, intent upon their play, though time 
Speed like a spectre by them, and their prime 
Bear on to sorrow—-“Angel, cry aloud! ” 
Tell them of life’s long evening—of the shroud : 
No ! let them play ; for age alone, and care, 
Too soon will frown to teach them what they are. 
Then let them play: but come, with aspect bland, 
Come, Charity, and lead them by the hand ; 
Come, Faith, and point amidst life’s saddest gloom, 
A light from Heaven, that shines beyond the tomb. 
When they look up, and in the clouds admire 
The lessening shaft of that aerial spire, 
So be their thoughts uplifted from the sod, 
Where time’s brief flowers they gather— to their God. 
Bowles. 
T O go over old ground is one of the necessities of this book, but now we 
have a new subject; for since “ Rustic Adornments ” first appeared, a 
quite new order of things has arisen in connection with the embellishment of 
the dinner-table. The improvement made upon the old “ epergne,” heavy 
with precious metal or an imitation of it, is so decisive and delightful, that we 
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