inations as Jacob Grimm got together from the
childhood of the world, barely lingering even in his time: I should have
thought you would have forgotten such childishness by this time."

The old man smiled, and said nothing; but Dick turned rather red, and
broke out:

"What _do_ you mean, guest? I think them very beautiful, I mean not only
the pictures, but the stories; and when we were children we used to
imagine them going on in every wood-end, by the bight of every stream:
every house in the fields was the Fairyland King's House to us. Don't
you remember, Clara?"

"Yes," she said; and it seemed to me as if a slight cloud came over her
fair face. I was going to speak to her on the subject, when the pretty
waitresses came to us smiling, and chattering sweetly like reed warblers
by the river side, and fell to giving us our dinner. As to this, as at
our breakfast, everything was cooked and served with a daintiness which
showed that those who had prepared it were interested in it; but there
was no excess either of quantity or of gourmandise; everything was
simple, though so excellent of its kind; and it was made clear to us that
this was no feast, only an ordinary meal. The glass, crockery, and plate
were very beautiful to my eyes, used to the study of mediaeval art; but a
nineteenth-century club-haunter would, I daresay, have found them rough
and lacking in finish; the crockery being lead-glazed pot-ware, though
beautifully ornamented; the only porcelain being here and there a piece
of old oriental ware. The glass, again, though elegant and quaint, and
very varied in form, was somewhat bubbled and hornier in texture than the
commercial articles of the nineteenth century. The furniture and general
fittings of the ball were much of a piece with the table-gear, beautiful
in form and highly ornamented, but without the commercial "finish" of the
joiners and cabinet-makers of our time. Withal, there was a total
absence of what the nineteenth century calls "comfort"--that is, stuffy
inconvenience; so that, even apart from the delightful excitement of the
day, I had never eaten my dinner so pleasantly before.

When we had done eating, and were sitting a little while, with a bottle
of very good Bordeaux wine before us, Clara came back to the question of
the subject-matter of the pictures, as though it had troubled her.

She looked up at them, and said: "How is it that though we are so
interested with our life for the m