pared an extempore collation of cakes and pilau for the angels. How
few ladies, whether Gentiles or Jewesses, could do the like in the
present day!"

2. The wistful and punctilious attention that Goodman Gaius paid to each
individual guest of his was a fine feature in his munificent hospitality.
He made every one who crossed his doorstep, down even to Mr. Fearing,
feel at once at home, such was his exquisite as well as his munificent
hospitality. "Come, sir," he said, clapping that white-faced and
trembling pilgrim on the shoulder, "come, sir, be of good cheer, you are
welcome to me and to my house; and what thou hast a mind to, that call
for freely: for what thou wouldst have my servants will do for thee, and
they will do it for thee with a ready mind." All the same, for a long
time Mr. Fearing was mortally afraid of the servants. He would as soon
have thought of stamping his foot for a duchess to come up as for any of
Gaius's serving-maids. He was afraid to make any noise in his room lest
all the house should hear it. He was afraid to touch anything in the
room lest it should fall and be broken. We ourselves, with all our
assumed ease and elaborate abandon, are often afraid to ring our bell
even in an inn. Mr. Fearing would as soon have pulled the tail of a
rattlesnake. But before their sojourn was over, the Guide was amazed at
Mr. Fearing, for that hare-hearted pilgrim would be doing things in the
house that he himself would scarcely do who had been in the house a
thousand times. It was Gaius's exuberant heartiness that had demoralised
Mr. Fearing and made him almost too forward even for a wayside inn. In
little things also Gaius, mine host, showed his sensitive and solicitous
hospitality. We all know housekeepers, not to say innkeepers, and not
otherwise ungenerous housekeepers either who will grudge us a
sixpennyworth of sticks and coals in a cold night, and that, too, in a
room furnished to overflowing by Morton Brothers or the Messrs. Maple. We
take a candlestick and a dozen candles with us in the boot of the
carriage when we wish to read or write late into the night in that great
house. Another housekeeper, who would give you her only daughter with
her wealthy dowry, will sometimes be seen by all in her house to grudge
you a fresh cup of afternoon tea when you drop in to see her and her
daughter. She says to herself that it is to spare the servants the
stairs; but, all the time, under the stairs,