decent, well educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them
tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of
the blue and white tiles with which the fire-places were
decorated, wherein sundry passages of scripture were piously
portrayed."

But it was in New England that the tea-party reached its highest
importance as a social function, and in the New England of more
than a century ago. Then and there were the weightiest themes of
religion and philosophy of such enthralling interest and so
interwoven with the practical affairs of men, that they were
familiarly discussed all the way from the pulpit and desk to the
household and tea-table, and were liable to be brought forward at
the table of the artisan, the farmer, or the shopkeeper, as well
as at that of the scholar. Every reader of early New England
history or New England fiction must be aware of this fact. The
presence of the "minister." so far from discouraging these
discussions, usually stimulated them, and lent them additional
interest. Instances of such gatherings and conversations, of
typical New England tea-parties, may be found in Mrs. Stowe's
Minister's Wooing.

The "tea-table" will always live in name and in association,
and we trust in reality, as an essential feature of family life,
even though the nature of the repast has greatly changed. The
pleasantest part of the working-day in former years was the
occasion when the family, drawn together by common interests and
sympathies, after the heavier tasks of the day were completed,
gathered around the table whose crowning symbol of good cheer was
the familiar and homely old tea-pot. From this fairy godmother