Is not permitted to forsake the side
Of her he serves, except there should arise
Some strange occasion warranting the use
Of so great freedom.

When one reads of these springs and little hops, which were once so
elegant, it is almost with a sigh for a world which no longer springs
or hops in the service of beauty, or even dreams of doing it. But a
passage which will touch the sympathetic with a still keener sense of
loss is one which hints how lovely a lady looked when carving, as she
then sometimes did:

Swiftly now the blade,
That sharp and polished at thy right hand lies,
Draw naked forth, and like the blade of Mars
Flash it upon the eyes of all. The point
Press 'twixt thy finger-tips, and bowing low
Offer the handle to her. Now is seen
The soft and delicate playing of the muscles
In the white hand upon its work intent.
The graces that around the lady stoop
Clothe themselves in new forms, and from her fingers
Sportively flying, flutter to the tips
Of her unconscious rosy knuckles, thence
To dip into the hollows of the dimples
That Love beside her knuckles has impressed.

Throughout the dinner it is the part of the well-bred husband--if so
ill-bred as to remain at all to sit impassive and quiescent while the
cavalier watches over the wife with tender care, prepares her food,