438 METALS—THE NOBLER.
fragrant
cucumber, reposed upon a shady table, covered with a snow-white cloth.
For whose delight, preserves, and jams, crisp cakes, and other pastry,
short to eat, with cunning twists, and cottage loaves, and rolls of
bread, both white and brown, were all set forth in rich profusion ; in
whose youth Mrs. Varden herself had grown quite young again, and stood
there in a gown of red and white ; symmetrical in figure, buxom in
bodice, ruddy in cheek, and lip, faultless in ankle, laughing in face,
and mood, in all respects delicious to behold ; there sat the locksmith
among all and every these delights, the sun that shone upon them all;
the centre of the system ; the source of light, heat, life, arid frank
enjoyment, in this bright household world."
For
soldiers in the field some method of safely sterilizing water, as by
keeping it in Copper vessels, may prove of incalculable service.
David
Copperfield, when he and Dora, " after several varieties of experiment,
gave up housekeeping as a bad job," the house kept itself; and, " we,"
wrote David, " kept a page-boy." " This retainer appears to me to have
lived in a hail of saucepan lids ! His principal function was to
quarrel with the cook ; in which respect he was a perfect Whittington,
without his cat, or the remotest chance of becoming Lord Mayor." " When
we had a little dinner-party he would come tumbling out of the kitchen,
with iron missiles flying after him." " We wanted to get rid of him ;
but he wouldn't go ! He was always rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of
his jacket, or stopping to blow his nose on the extreme corner of a
small pocket-handkerchief, which he never would take completely out of his pocket, but always economised, and secreted."
