before it, too, takes to its heels," said Alicia, practically. Without further ado we dragged forward a small table, and fell to. Aladdin probably tasted fare like that, the first time he rubbed the magic lamp.
When we had polished the last chicken bone, and had that comfortable feeling that nothing can give so thoroughly as a good meal, Alicia carefully examined the china and silver.
"Old blue-and-white English china; English silver initialed 'R.H.G.' Sophy, handle this prayerfully: it's an apostle spoon. Think of having a jinnee fetch you your coffee, and of stirring it with an apostle spoon."
She spoke reverently. Alicia is the sort who flattens her nose against antique-shop windows, and would go without dessert for a month of Sundays and trudge afoot to save carfare, if thereby she might buy an old print, or a bit of pottery; just as I am content to admire the print or the pottery in the shop window, feeling sure that when they are finally sold to somebody better able to buy them, something else I can admire just as much will take their place. Mine is a philosophy not altogether to be despised, though Alicia rejects it. She handled the blue-and-white ware with tender hands, laid the silver together, and set the tray upon the window-ledge. Then, on a leaf of my pocket memorandum—she never carries one of her own—she scribbled the following absurdity and pinned it to the linen cover:
Ariel, accept the gratitude of mortals set down hungry in the house of Sycorax. Gay and kind spirit, when we broke your bread you broke her spell: the wishbone of your chicken has cooked her goose! Maker of Music, Donator of Dinners, thanks!
"And now," said she, "having been serenaded, and satisfied with nothing short of perfection, let's go up-stairs, Sophy, and decide where we shall sleep to-night."
We chose the front room because of a gate-legged table that Alicia wanted to say her prayers beside, and because of the particularly fine portrait of a colonial gentleman above the mantel, a very handsome man in claret-colored satin, with a vest of flowered gold brocade, a gold-hilted sword upon which his fine fingers rested, and a pair of silk-stockinged legs of which he seemed complacently aware.
"I wish you weren't dead," Alicia told him regretfully. "Your taste in clothes is above all praise, though I fancy you were somewhat too vain of your legs, sir. I never knew before that men had legs like that, did you, Sophy?"
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