"Afternoon tea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lilias," on the other hand, the author avails herself of all the agreeable traditions of English fiction: there are warm and well-lighted rooms, well-to-do people, regular meals, afternoon tea, plenty of bread-and-butter, and a gentle ripple of friendly, soft-voiced conversation. This may not be original or exciting, but, after a good deal of crude sensation through some thousand and odd pages, "ways of pleasantness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... condescend to read these pages), let the author ask one impertinent little question: Is there not something in the conversation of Dick Steele's First Lady, or his Second Lady, or all the other Ladies, which suggests the charity and intellectuality that doth hedge in an afternoon tea? ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... such deleterious substances or adulterants as yeast, chemicals, artificial colouring matter, mineral salt, &c. The variety of biscuits and cakes ranges from the plainest sorts, to suit the dyspeptic or ascetic, to the most delectable dainties for afternoon tea, not forgetting Oaten Shortcakes to specially delight the "Canny Scot." Nor need any one be at a loss to obtain supplies, for, besides the various Health Food Depots mentioned (see inside front ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... few of the pigs ourselves whether we're technically at war or not. A lot of us collected, your friend Massey among the rest. I remember particularly when he joined the mob because he was so much taller than the rest of us and came strolling in as if he was going to an afternoon tea instead of getting into an international mess with nearly all the contracting parties drunk and disorderly. There was a good deal of excitement and confusion. I don't believe anybody knows just what happened but a drunken Mexican drew ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... touched a button (for the castle was thoroughly wired and there was even a miniature telephone system) and servants brought us up afternoon tea, and a couple of chairs to sit on, and a folding table set out with flowers, and the best toast and the best tea and the best strawberry jam and the best chocolate cake and the best butter that I had as yet tasted in the whole island. The view itself ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... 'There'd be afternoon tea at Aunt Betsy's to build upon, said Horry. 'I gave her to understand we were to have something good: blue gages from the south wall, cream to ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... commonly named "La Parisienne," or something like that, or are called "rotisseries." There are some just ordinary restaurants, too, and many immaculate, light-lunch rooms. "Afternoon Tea" is a frequent sign, and one often sees the delicate suggestion in neat gilt, "Sandwiches." Grocers in this part of town, it would seem, handle only "select," "fancy," and "choice" groceries, and "hot-house products." There are ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... the Hermit said, laughing. "I'm used to the process. Only I don't suppose I could get it done soon enough for afternoon tea." ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... Judd wore shorts. The real reason is not that they are cool, but that they are picturesque. Common belief to the contrary, your average practical, matter-of-fact Englishman loves to dress up. I knew one engaged in farming-picturesque farming-in our own West, who used to appear at afternoon tea in a clean suit of blue overalls! It is a harmless amusement. Our own youths do it, also, substituting chaps for shorts, perhaps. I am not criticising the spirit in them; but merely trying to ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... is the work of serene-tempered and well-fed men, whose cosy library with windows facing to the south, and the open fire-place with its soothing and cheerful glow, is conducive to the developing of a red-tape reform that must be an inspiring subject for discussion at an afternoon tea. Because they are well fed is the reason why they can play a waiting game, but the despairing and maddened people, for whose benefit this single tax contract, with its long deferred payment, is being drawn up, will have as little use for it as they ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... of harbouring a bevy of odalisques at No. 20 Lingfield Terrace? Calumny and Exaggeration walk abroad, arm in arm, even on the north side of Regent's Park. If they had spied Carlotta at my window this morning, they would have looked in for afternoon tea at my Aunt Jessica's and have waylaid Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne outside the Oratory. The question is: Shall Truth anticipate them? I think not. Every family has its irrepressible, impossible, unpractical member, its enfant terrible, who is forever doing the wrong thing with the best intentions. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... an Irishman. Before he answered her he cast a quick look about the long hall. Afternoon tea was just being served, consisting, besides tea, of homemade strawberry jam and lettuce sandwiches made of crisp fresh bread, with plenty of butter; and certain elderly ladies had just arrived, bringing with them, among other contributions, sheaves of flowers and a dogcart loaded with hothouse ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... she will. However, we shall be much more comfortable at the Vyses' hotel. Isn't afternoon tea given ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... luncheon, between breakfast and dinner, it interposed itself between the noontide dinner and the evening supper. Now, with an increasing proportion of the community, the universal luncheon, postponed to a later hour, is the actual dinner; and our under-meal is the afternoon tea. ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... the one for the news that's exciting. You've wasted your paper in sending to me. I would just as soon think, love, of flying as writing One word of the scandal of afternoon tea. Give my love to your mother, and kisses to DORA— (She's doing the season with you, I presume?) And believe ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... relative importance to him of the two activities. To my surprise, I heard the piano at two o'clock, instead of at three, and it continued without intermission till five. Then he came, like a sudden wind, on to the terrace where I was having tea. Diaz would never take afternoon tea. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... cloud of dust to Australian Pier, where we had to wait in the grilling sun for another hour before we got off to the "Abessiah," of the Khedivial Line, which sailed at 4.15, taking a long time to manoeuvre before she got her head towards the entrance of the harbour. We had a good afternoon tea of crisp toast and real butter, likely our last respectable meal for ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... of yellow peel, and a blade of mace, then setting in sunshine until the sugar dissolves. It should be almost like honey—no other sweetening is needed. A spoonful in after-dinner coffee makes it another beverage—just as a syrup made in the same way from rum, sugar and lemon juice, glorifies afternoon tea. ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... meetings and picnics at the Waterworks and occasional afternoon card-parties where the older women wore their Sunday silks and exchanged recipes and household gossip. If only there was something interesting—just a little dash of "atmosphere." If only they drank afternoon tea, or talked about Higher Things, or smoked cigarettes, or wore long ear-rings! But, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... can hardly be supposed that people never walk in their gardens. The Hotel des Indes was very comfortable, each visitor having a sitting-room and bedroom opening on a verandah, where he can take his morning coffee and afternoon tea. In the centre of the quadrangle is a building containing a number of marble baths always ready for use; and there is an excellent table d'hote breakfast at ten, and dinner at six, for all which there is ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Boulogne even during my stay. The petits gateaux got smaller, the hours during which officers might enter restaurants for afternoon tea became painfully shorter. But they were not a whit less enjoyable, reminding one as they did of the dear old days, long before the war was thought of, and before the war of life had taken me to Labrador. If one had hoped that a life in the wilds had succeeded in eradicating ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the powers met in conference, Metternich found an opportunity for cementing his influence over Alexander which had been wanting amid the turmoil and feminine intrigues of Vienna and Aix. Here, in confidence begotten of friendly chats over afternoon tea, the disillusioned autocrat confessed his mistake. "You have nothing to regret,'' he said sadly to the exultant chancellor, "but I have!''12 The issue was momentous. In January Alexander had still upheld the ideal of a free confederation of the European states, symbolized by the Holy Alliance, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... student life, this friendly hostel seemed to us. Several women whom we knew at home were pouring tea, and we met some nice English and American girls who are studying art and music, and the tea and buns brought to us by friendly hands made the simple afternoon tea take upon it something of the nature of a lovefeast, so warm and kindly was the ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Highness; but it seems so strange. And then the expense! Men are such hearty eaters. Besides," she looked with a charming smile from the Princess to Wiggs, "we were all getting on so nicely together! Of course if he just dropped in for afternoon tea one day——" ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... been introduced to her one day in the street, therefore there could be nothing strange in his going in and asking for her, Ethel said. And would he please go about four o'clock, so as to catch Miss Lesley Brooke at afternoon tea. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... playin' cricket and polo, and drinkin' afternoon tea with a napkin on his knee, like one of the gentry themselves. And between ourselves, he cares no more about cigarettes than his ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... she had been so impulsive in telling him all that Dr. Harpe had whispered over the afternoon tea at Mrs. Symes's now fashionable Thursday "At Home." It was the first of the coveted cards which Mrs. Terriberry had received and Dr. Harpe took care to adroitly convey the information that the invitation was due to her, and Mrs. Terriberry ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... idea of afternoon tea," exclaimed the Colonel, as he settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and seized upon the chicken. "Did you feed ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... Caw, in his little sitting-room, was entertaining Monsieur Guidet to afternoon tea. The Frenchman had just completed the operation of replacing Christopher's clock with one of similar aspect minus the glamour and mystery of ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... proud of one of his little jobs, which he flatters himself he accomplished in a very neat and artistic manner. I forget the details, but it resulted in the death of five men. I asked him in to afternoon tea, Shah Mirza acting as interpreter. We had a long chat, from which I gained some very useful details about the state of the parties in Chitral, who was likely to help, and who wasn't, also a description of the road to Killa Drasan, which I did not know. This latter information seemed ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... having just changed from a bright scarlet costume into a brighter, was taking her afternoon tea before returning ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... time. Humanity is interested in achievement, but not in the manner of its accomplishment. And Robert's brother and sister knew much of his story by heart. It had formed the sole theme of his letters to them for many years past. Mrs. Pendleton's thoughts wandered to afternoon tea. Her husband nodded with closed eyes, and recovered himself with convulsive starts. Austin Turold fixed his glance on the ceiling, where a solitary fly was cleaning its wings with its legs. From the window Charles Turold presented an immobile profile. Only ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... for instance. Can you picture a dignified New York Trust Company with bowls of wild flowers placed about the desks and a general air of hospitality? In one bank I have often had a pleasant half-hour very like an afternoon tea, where all the officers, from the president down, came to shake hands and ask after the children. Of course, that is a rather unusually pleasant and friendly bank, even for California. Always I am carefully, tenderly almost, escorted to my motor. ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... said Jane to Susan, "if mother would only consent to it, is no use to us, and would look very handsome here." "Real silver, and old silver, which is so much the rage, and a thing she could use every day when she has her visitors for afternoon tea," said Susan to Jane. "It is rather small," said Miss Hill, doubtfully. "But quite enough for two people," said the other, forgetting that she had just declared that the teapot would be serviceable when Elinor had visitors. But ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... that the best Society novelists at present, who write with a real knowledge of the people they are describing, are W. E. Norris, Julian Sturgis, and Rhoda Broughton." We continued in conversation for some time longer, until the time came for afternoon tea, when Mrs. Henniker suggested that we should join the rest of the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... no misnomer. From the most stately and beautiful ceremonials of balls at the court of the Quirinale, in ducal palaces, or at the embassies; of dinners whose every detail suggests stage pictures in their magnificence, to the simple afternoon tea, where conversation and music enchant the hours; the morning call en tete-a-tete, and the morning stroll, or the late afternoon drive,—a season in Rome prefigures itself, by the necromancy of retrospective vision, as a resplendent panorama of ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... of afternoon tea was still being languidly observed in the big drawing-room when Yeovil returned to Berkshire Street. Cicely was playing the part of hostess to a man of perhaps forty-one years of age, who looked slightly older ...
— When William Came • Saki
... fellow-sufferer, to Hill's imagination. So that he became, as it were, a champion of the fallen and oppressed, albeit to outward seeming only a self-assertive, ill-mannered young man, and an unsuccessful champion at that. Again and again a skirmish over the afternoon tea that the girl students had inaugurated left Hill with flushed cheeks and a tattered temper, and the debating society noticed a new quality of sarcastic ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... stomachs as a ruminant, he would not mind three or four serious meals a day, not counting the tea as one of them. The luncheon is a very convenient affair: it does not require special dress; it is informal; it is soon over, and may be made light or heavy, as one chooses. The afternoon tea is almost a necessity in London life. It is considered useful as "a pick me up," and it serves an admirable purpose in the social system. It costs the household hardly any trouble or expense. It brings people together in the easiest possible way, for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... incessantly, and his usually florid complexion had deteriorated to a muddy pallor. Black mufti did not suit the handsome martial figure, and there is no dwelling so wearisome as a house of mourning, when the servants move about on tiptoe, wearing faces of funereal solemnity, and the afternoon tea-tray is carried in in state, like the corpse of a domestic usage on its way to the cemetery, with the silver spirit-kettle bubbling behind it as chief mourner. But, as the elder son, there was plenty to occupy Captain Saxham. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... we went to afternoon tea with their Excellencies. The room was full, but there were only one or two of us winners, when one of the A.D.C.s told His Excellency that the Duke of the Abruzzi was just outside and he had asked him to come in. In he came, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... was so awakened by what he had seen that, as soon as we had been refreshed by a cup of afternoon tea, he suggested that we should go out for a walk; accordingly the whole party proceeded to Kensington Gardens, followed by a curious and somewhat derisive crowd of small boys, who would insist upon advising the Wallypug to "get his hair cut." ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... Flower Festival was opened and afternoon tea was served to the early comers. All the members of the United Service Club and the other boys and girls of the town who helped them wore flower costumes. It was while the Ethels were serving Mrs. Smith and the Miss Clarks that the latter ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... the principal streets of Cannes to-day, you might imagine yourself (except for the climate) at Cowes or Brighton, so British are the shops and the crowd that passes them. Every restaurant advertises "afternoon tea" and Bass's ale, and every other sign bears a London name. This little matter of tea is particularly characteristic of the way the English have imposed a taste of their own on a rebellious nation. Nothing is further from the French taste than tea-drinking, ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... the afternoon. They smoked cigarettes, which the Vicar did not allow in the house; he thought smoking a disgusting habit, and used frequently to say that it was disgraceful for anyone to grow a slave to a habit. He forgot that he was himself a slave to afternoon tea. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... at Mrs. Cookson's at afternoon tea. I thought she was badly dressed. You know Manorwater, don't you, George?" said the lady to her husband, with the boldness which comes from the use of a peer's name ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... liked to look in and linger for either the reasoning or the bickering, as it happened, and now, seeing the three there together, I took a provisional seat behind the painter, who made no sign of knowing I was present. Rulledge was eating a caviar sandwich, which he had brought from the afternoon tea-table near by, and he greedily incited Wanhope to go on, in the polite pause which the psychologist had let follow on my appearance, with what he was saying. I was not surprised to find that his ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... for Rangoon had nearly a whole day ashore. Mrs. Milward and maid, and her young friends Miss Leigh and Mr. Shafto, Herr Bernhard, the Pomeroys, Mrs. Lacy and several of her satellites, breakfasted at the Galle Face Hotel, and subsequently made trips in rickshaws, shopped in the bazaar, and had afternoon tea at ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... the house in time for afternoon tea, and smiled complacently around as she warmed herself ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... designer for stained glass, in "Afternoon Tea" (Warne, 1880), set a new fashion for "aesthetic" little quartos costing five or six shillings each. This was followed by "At Home" (1881), and "At Home Again" (1886, Marcus Ward), and later by "Young Maids and Old China." These, despite their popularity, display no particular ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... Afternoon tea was just ended, and several of Mrs. Octagon's friends had departed. Basil and Mr. Octagon were out, but the latter entered with a paper in his hand shortly after the last visitor took her leave. Mrs. Octagon, in a ruby-colored ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... Monterey. And between the boards that cover a door in the high wall, one may peek and catch a glimpse of hollyhocks in a row and roses running wild, trellises of green lattice and ghosts of beautiful ladies having afternoon tea. ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... lounge, and Mr. Prohack at a distance unwillingly after them. In the lounge so abundantly enlarged and enriched since the days of the celebrated Felix Babylon, the founder of the hotel, post-lunch coffee was merging into afternoon tea. The number of idle persons in the world, and the number of busy persons who ministered to them, and the number of artistic persons who played voluptuous music to their idleness, struck Mr. Prohack as merely prodigious. He had not dreamed that idleness on so ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... than the ordinary afternoon tea. Special cards are engraved, and if any special entertainment is provided, the fact may be indicated by the words, "Music," or "Miscellaneous Program" (when readings and music are interspersed). Or, the announcement may be omitted, and the program furnish a pleasant surprise ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... twice a week. Aunt Isabel says I have a pretty good voice, and I love to sing, and Reginald takes me skating, and that is splendid. I don't know how yet, but he says I am learning pretty well. Aunt Isabel gave an afternoon tea for me, and next week we are going to have a big party, and I think that will be nice. I like parties and dancing-school, only the girls and boys all act so grown up. They are about my age and even younger, and they act as if they were ladies and gentlemen. That ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great change in our life at the rectory. Prior to that Hephzy and I had, golfly speaking, been playing it as a twosome. Now it became a threesome, with other players added at frequent intervals. At ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rescue of the pheasants about four in the afternoon, and all of us, men and women, were sitting at afternoon tea in the firelit study, drowsily watching the flicker of the flame on the black panelling. The characters will introduce themselves, as they take ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... theatre by a friend. We think ourselves very famous, yet most of us have friends ignorant of the fact that our trade is to criticize plays. The position is a little quaint; one is asked to dine at about the time that is customary to take afternoon tea; the dinner is short though, if at a fashionable restaurant, the waits are long; and there comes an awful moment when the host mentions that he has got six stalls for the ——. Generally there is some friend present who knows the true position, and exhibits ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... in better condition than he, and he was a little out of breath by the time they reached the Cafe de Paris, which was crowded at that hour with the afternoon tea people. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... she was not slow to express a desire to meet them. He could arrange it, of course. And then, on meeting them, she would at once insist on giving a dinner or a supper at Pre Catalin, or, on finding that they couldn't scrape up a spare evening,—to make it afternoon tea. Poor ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... the enclosure to take its full effect. Before that began, not more than ten or twelve years ago, there were abundant patches of heath still left open; and on many a spot where nowadays the well-to-do have their tennis or their afternoon tea, of old I have seen donkeys peacefully grazing. The donkeys have had to go, their room being wanted, and not many cottagers can keep a donkey now; but kept they were, and in considerable numbers, until these late years, in spite of the enclosure. ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... rugs, and Mudie novels, to which I was doubtless being taken. My fancy pictured very vividly the five or six little Okes—that man certainly must have at least five children—the aunts, and sisters-in-law, and cousins; the eternal routine of afternoon tea and lawn-tennis; above all, it pictured Mrs. Oke, the bouncing, well-informed, model housekeeper, electioneering, charity-organising young lady, whom such an individual as Mr. Oke would regard in the light of a remarkable woman. And my spirit sank within me, and ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... aid the pupils in their home work, it is necessary to know the needs of the home. If possible, interest and cooperation of the pupils' mothers in this matter should be secured. It is hoped that the afternoon tea suggested in the following lesson may afford means for the teacher to become acquainted with the mother to find out something of the needs of the home and to secure the mother's cooperation for her daughter's ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... time in the past the Spences had been a leisured people. They had brought from the old country the tradition of afternoon tea. Many others had, no doubt, done the same but with these others the tradition had not persisted. In the more crowded life of a new country they had let it go. The Spences had not let it go. It wasn't their way. And in time it had assumed the importance of a survival. It stood for some-thing. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... am a very rough specimen, and you must put up with me if you mean to get on at The Laurels. We are all stiff and staid here; we are English of the English. Everything is done by rule of thumb—breakfast to the minute, lunch to the minute, afternoon tea to the minute, dinner to the minute, even tennis to the minute. Oh! it's detestable; and I—I am expected to be good, and you know there's not a bit of goodness in me. I am all fidgets, and you can never be sure of me for two ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... frightened. "Oh, Lance! What in the world are you going to propose? Please don't ask me to take your part if you have been having an argument with father. I may not think you are in the right. Suppose we have afternoon tea before you tell us anything. We brought the tea things over in the canoe and Ouida and I have been collecting ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was so suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Saturday in the early days of the following year, 1892, Edwin by special request had gone in to take afternoon tea with the Orgreaves. Osmond Orgreave was just convalescent after an attack of influenza, and in the opinion of Janet wanted cheering up. The task of enlivening him had been laid upon Edwin. The guest, and Janet and her father and mother sat together in a group round the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... cheese. Fortunately for those of less vigorous appetite, mine host of the Nederlanden, far in advance of his Javanese fraternity, kindly provides a simple "tiffin" as an alternative to this Gargantuan repast. Afternoon tea is served in the verandah, and at eight o'clock the Dutch contingent, having slept off the effects of the rice table, prepares with renewed energies to attack a heavy dinner. New Year's Eve is celebrated by a very bombardment of fireworks ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... or veranda, simply two stone steps leading up to a stout oak door which opened onto the embassy kitchens. From behind this door came the sound of crockery and the hum of voices. The Arvanian chef evidently was preparing afternoon tea. ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... when you've got the right doctor. I've practiced for thirty years among Endbury ladies. They can't spring anything new on me. I've taken your mother through doily fever induced by the change from table-cloths to bare tops, through portiere inflammation, through afternoon tea distemper, through art-nouveau prostration and mission furniture palsy, not to speak of a horrible attack of acute insanity over the necessity for having her maids wear caps. I think you can trust me, whatever dodge the old malady ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... proceeded to do, putting in a great many wheels and levers, and adding, a folding-table at the side on which the gunners might have afternoon tea—this last prompted by the arrival just then of cups and saucers and a ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... retired to a shady nook a little way up the creek, where, flat on our backs among the grass and ferns, we spent the early part of the afternoon yarning over other Christmas Days, spent in far different fashion in a far distant land. We too had Battle-axe brandy as a sort of afternoon tea, and this roused Dick up to such an extent that he burst forth into song. Unfortunately he chose for his theme, "The Old Folks at Home," and as we joined with his clear tenor in the chorus of the pathetic old ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... importance or benefit to you, yourself, or to anybody, or any thing, that you should spend so much of your time in gambling at the bridge table? Or gossiping at an afternoon tea? Or attending a meeting at the woman's club? Or at the hair-dresser's and manicure's? Or in intellectual pursuits of any kind? Is it not more important to you and to your family and to the future of your race and kind, to devote a considerable amount of your time and energy to the ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... and less beauty in the Bayreuth representation; and, to do them bare justice, until lately they have been fairly successful in persuading the world to think with them. Verily, they have their reward—they partake of afternoon tea at Villa Wahnfried; they enjoy the honour of bowing low to the second Mrs. Wagner; Wagner's legal descendants cordially take them by the hand. And they go away refreshed, and again spread the report of the artistic and moral and religious supremacy ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... potatoes and onions, drenched in oil and vinegar, a glorious dish with cold meat to go to bed on! Also hot maize-meal cakes eaten with syrup at breakfast, and other injudicious cakes. As a rule it was a hot breakfast and midday dinner; an afternoon tea, with hot bread and scones and peach-preserve, and a late cold supper. For breakfast, mutton cutlets, coffee, and things made with maize. Eggs were plentiful—eggs of fowl, duck, goose, and wild fowl's eggs—wild duck and plover in their season. In spring—August to October—we occasionally ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... one day from a solitary ramble on Hampstead Heath to find that Salthaven, or a whiff of it, had come to her. A deep voice, too well known to be mistaken, fell on her ears as she entered the front door, and hastening to the drawing-room she found her aunt entertaining Captain Trimblett to afternoon tea. One large hand balanced a cup and saucer; the other held a plate. His method of putting both articles in one hand while he ate or drank might have excited the envy of a practised juggler. When Joan entered the room she found ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... though. We hadn't much more'n got through our mitt exercise, and Pinckney was only half into his afternoon tea uniform, when there's a 'phone call for him. And the next thing I know he's hustled into his ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... At afternoon tea there was no milk served. "There was none," Sam explained blandly. "The missus had drunk it all. Missus bin finissem milk all about," he said When the lubras were brought back, THEY said THEY had "knocked up longa scrub," and finished the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... back to the Grand and got his portmanteau and Gladstone bag and returned to Westbourne Terrace in time for afternoon tea. Meanwhile, he had bought the early copies of all the evening papers and read up the condition of things in London, which, in the light of his experiences at Portsmouth, did not appear to him to be in any way promising. He gave Norah and her aunt a full, true and particular ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the English genius for domesticity more notably declared than in the institution of this festival—almost one may call it so—of afternoon tea. Beneath simple roofs, the hour of tea has something in it of sacred; for it marks the end of domestic work and worry, the beginning of restful, sociable evening. The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... crowded drawing-room, thinking only how best to enjoy herself. The thought of marriage, if near, is yet so far, that it hardly interferes with her pleasure in the waltz, the theatre, or the eternal afternoon tea. ...
— How to Marry Well • Mrs. Hungerford
... part of him was in the grip of the demon of decay was that, instead of coming to the Pines to luncheon, as had been his wont, he preferred of late to come to afternoon tea, and return to Elm Park before dinner. And on the occasion when he last came in this way it seemed to us here that he had aged still more; yet his intellectual forces had lost nothing of their power. And as a companion he was as winsome as ever. That fine quality with which he ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... "crowd" imaginable. They had been thoughtful enough to warn her that they were coming, too, so that she could set the old manse living-room in its pleasantest order, build a crackling apple-wood fire in the fireplace, and get out her best thin china and silver with which to serve afternoon tea—she made it chocolate, with vivid recollection of their tastes; and added deliciously substantial though delicate sandwiches, with plenty of the fruitiest and nuttiest kinds of little cakes. She had donned the one ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... escort her to her gate, but no farther. Twice only had he gone inside to take part in the ceremony—of such vital importance in her life —of 'afternoon tea.' The loneliness and emptiness of those short streets (consisting, almost entirely, of low-roofed houses, self-contained but not detached, their monotony interrupted here and there by the dark intrusion of some sinister little shop, at once an historical document ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of change in the habits of life. When I was a boy coffee was unknown for breakfast, cocoa had not become known as a beverage, and tea was regularly drunk. We seldom took lunch, nor did the ladies, and afternoon tea was unheard of. Instead, tea was brought into the drawing-room about eight in the evening, and was always drunk very weak and sweet. In those times it was invariably from China ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... will prove of general interest to the whole group. Do not explain the mechanism of a gas engine at an afternoon tea or the culture of hollyhocks at a ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... to inquire after Gyp the terrier, Rex the angora cat, Dandy the parrot, and Ellen the maid. Your aunt is exceedingly sensitive about such small attentions. You might invite your friends to meet her at afternoon tea, and if you can manage it tactfully you might warn them not to discuss topics with which she is unacquainted. She has, as you know, a very peculiar disposition. The least suspicion of neglect or hint of criticism exasperates her beyond endurance. In her childhood she ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... much longer than our voyage up, on account of the tide being against us, and in consequence we did not reach Hongkong until 3.30 p.m., when the gig with the children was soon alongside. We got off as soon as we could, for we expected some friends to afternoon tea on board the yacht. There was just time to dress before the first visitors arrived, and by half-past six at least two hundred had come. At one time quite a flotilla of boats lay around us, looking very pretty with all their flags flying. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... were drawn, the fire blazed brightly, the lamp on the console at the side of the room threw a soft pleasant glow on the dainty table set out temptingly for "afternoon tea," which, notwithstanding their long residence in France, Auntie and her nieces were very fond of. And with the little exertion of making all as bright and pretty as they could, the girls' spirits ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... don't get Bassanio, after what Barbara and Clara Ellis have said to me, I shall know whom to blame." She paused a moment for her words to take effect. "My father says," she went on, "that women never have any sense of obligation. They don't think of paying back anything but invitations to afternoon tea. I must tell him about you. He'll find you such a splendid illustration. Good-bye, or I shall be late to chemistry." Jean sped off in the direction ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... side," she said. She made just a little space for him on the sofa—barely enough so that he had to squeeze in. The afternoon tea was correct, save for the extraordinary thickness of the bread-and-butter. But G.J. said to himself that the French did not understand bread-and-butter, and the Italians still less. To compensate for the defects of the bread-and-butter there was a ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... broke up in a chastened spirit, and the Royal Family, after a light meal which was the nearest approach to afternoon tea that Maerchenland afforded, went out for an airing on their favourite promenade—the ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... to remind him that the English have settled in a good many places: in America, in Australia, in spots fair and foul, friendly and unfriendly; that they have brought afternoon tea and sport and Anglican services to the pleasure resorts of Europe and the deserts of Africa. Meeting with no response, I embarked on a short account of the past travels and achievements of the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the French in the art of settlement in foreign lands. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... kindly and friendly in manner, that she was emboldened to laugh at the recollection of the tone in which he had alluded to her elaborately-dressed hair and long dresses, and to devise a way of surprising him. She came down one day to afternoon tea in an old school-girlish dress of blue serge, rather short about the ankles, a red and white pinafore, and a crimson sash. Her hair was loose about her neck, and had been combed over her forehead in the fashion in which she wore it in her childish days. Thus attired, she looked about fourteen ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... du Lac, furnished with half a dozen tables and chairs, a red and green parrot chained to a perch, and a shady little arbour covered with vines, is a pleasant enough place for morning coffee, but decidedly too sunny for afternoon tea. It was close upon four of a July day, when Gustavo, his inseparable napkin floating from his arm, emerged from the cool dark doorway of the house and scanned the burning vista of tables and chairs. ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... Mary declared. He strolled about the grounds with her; he drank the sweet melody of her voice in Heine's tenderest ballads; he read to her on the sunlit lawn in the lazy afternoon hours; he played billiards with her; he was her faithful attendant at afternoon tea; he gave himself up to the study of her character, which, to his charmed eyes, seemed the perfection of pure and placid womanhood. There might, perhaps, be some lack of passion and of force in this nature, a marked absence of that ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the gardener, "I will go with you no farther than the station-house in the next street. The inspector, no doubt, will be glad to take a stroll with you as far as Eaton Place, and have a bit of afternoon tea with your great acquaintances. Or would you prefer to go direct to the Home Secretary? Sir Thomas Vandeleur, indeed! Perhaps you think I don't know a gentleman when I see one, from a common run-the-hedge like you? Clothes or no clothes, I can read you like a book. Here is a shirt that ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spring all through the between years, until now I've made up my mind it's something that's meant to be, and I'm going to give in to it. Sit down here under the trees, my dear, and Esther Nichols will bring us some tea and fresh cider cake. Yes, I see that you look surprised to have afternoon tea offered on Pine Ridge, but I got the habit from the English grandmother that reared me, and I've always counted it a better hospitality than the customary home-made cordials and syrups that, between ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... great square hall, hung round in baronial style with antlers, and furnished in all the luxury of modern comfort, wondering through which of the dozen doors that open out of the square it would be best worth our while to penetrate, a footman, bearing a tray with afternoon tea, flits past us. Let us follow him, for afternoon tea means that living creatures ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... and close up under it, nearly flush with its sill, stood a substantial six-foot-by-four table, the chairs at either end comfortably filling the rest of the alcove. They could sit here to write or sew, or drink afternoon tea, and look out upon as pleasant a rural landscape—the Malvern Hills—as any suburban villa could command. It was that view, indeed, which had decided Deb to take ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... saw them two miles off an hour ago with him after them. His wife, who is also after them, goaded to desperation, said, "He's the most ignorant, careless, good-for-nothing man I ever saw," upon which I dwelt upon his being well meaning. There is a sort of well here, but our "afternoon tea" and watering the horses drained it, so we have had nothing to drink since yesterday, for the canteen, which started without a cork, lost all its contents when the mule fell. I have made a monstrous fire, but thirst and impatience are hard ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... boy, that it's against my custom to breakfast at afternoon tea, and that I hope his wife ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... knew of Gaylord's return she was inclined to pay no attention to his wife, despite her remarks to Steve. Then Gaylord telephoned, and she had him up for afternoon tea, during which he told her all about it. He was very diplomatic in his undertaking. He pictured Trudy as a diamond in the rough, and in subtle, careful fashion gave Beatrice to understand that just as she had married a diamond in the rough—with a Virginia City grandfather and a Basque grandmother ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Afternoon tea was brought in by an elderly man-servant in plain livery, and was probably the most unconventional meal which Reist had ever shared. They sat about promiscuously upon chairs and overturned boxes, and there was a good deal of lively conversation. Brand was a newspaper man, ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... of the year is October—the time of day is five o'clock. In the vicarage drawing-room the afternoon tea-table has just been set out, and the fire just lit, for it is chilly; but one of the long French windows leading into the garden is still open, and through it Vera steps ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... of a great English household. At 7 a gong sounded for rising, at 8 a horn blew for breakfast, at 8.30 a whistle sounded for prayers, at 1 a flag was run up at half-mast for lunch, at 4 a gun was fired for afternoon tea, at 9 a first bell sounded for dressing, at 9.15 a second bell for going on dressing, while at 9.30 a rocket was sent up to indicate that dinner was ready. At midnight dinner was over, and at 1 a.m. the tolling of a bell summoned the domestics ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... The men are anxious to sing in parts themselves. After the service we took Rob for a run, then three of the men turned up and did not depart till after six o'clock. We usually have three meals a day: breakfast, dinner and supper, but on Sundays generally allow ourselves afternoon tea. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... if told that their lives were narrow, since they have never seen the limit of the breadth of their current of daily life. A singing-school is as much to them as a symphony concert and grand opera to their city brethren, and a sewing church sociable as an afternoon tea. Though the standard of taste of the simple villagers, and their complete satisfaction therewith, may reasonably be lamented, as also their restricted view of life, they are not to be pitied, generally speaking, for their unhappiness in consequence. It may be ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... it is not intercepted by the butler and applied to his own uses, is generally too unctuous for my taste. Very different are our relations with the Doodwallah. Our chota hazree waits for him in the morning; our afternoon tea cannot proceed till he comes; the baby cries if the Doodwallah is late. And even if you are one of the few who strike for independence and keep their own cow, I still counsel you to maintain amicable relations with the Doodwallah. ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... was all meant for ex-Private, Captain de facto, and Colonel-elect Willie Robbins. The town was crazy about him. They notified us that the reception they were going to put up would make the Mardi Gras in New Orleans look like an afternoon tea in Bury St. Edmunds ...
— Options • O. Henry
... young lawyer took an afternoon tea together before they left Maudesley, and were altogether very sociable, not to say merry. It was upon this occasion that Arthur Lovell, for the first time in his life, observed that Dora Macmahon had very beautiful brown eyes, and ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... in question was a certain ingenious device of Don's for obtaining a double allowance of afternoon tea—a refreshment for which he had acquired a strong taste. The tea had once been too hot and burnt his tongue, and, as he howled with the pain, milk had been added. Ever since that occasion he had been in the habit of lapping ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... grove on the brow of a cliff that overhangs the bay—with all of the appurtenances, golf links, tennis courts, cricket grounds, racquet courts and indoor gymnasium, and everybody stops there on their afternoon drive to have chotohazree, which is the local term for afternoon tea and for ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... "I think afternoon tea is the loveliest thing," Sue said, as they went back to Blue Bonnet's room for a brief visit. "There's something about it that makes one feel so grown up—so sort of lady-like! I've always said that when ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... of the first Grandeza; but that is of the past now in Spain, as in most countries. To be sure, it has not there become fashionable for ladies to keep bonnet-shops or dress-making establishments, nor to open afternoon tea-rooms or orchaterias, still less to set up as so-called financiers, as it has with us. However, even that may come to pass in the struggle for "el high life," of which some of the Spanish writers complain so bitterly. Imagination absolutely refuses, however, to see the ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... skilfully that chap adapts himself to the needs of the moment," he said. "Now, you mightn't think it, but this is the very first time I have ever been honoured with visitors to afternoon tea. Observe how Wing immediately falls in with English taste and custom! Without a word from me, out comes the silver tea-pot, the best china, the finest linen! He produces his choicest plum-cake; the bread-and-butter is cut with ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Mrs. O'Reilly, "we all like to be neighbourly, my dear, and a week ago I should have been ready to say nothing but good of him. But now my eyes have been opened. I'll tell you just how it was. We were sitting here, just as you and I are now, at afternoon tea; the talk had flagged a little, and for the sake of something to say I made some remark about Bulgaria—not that I really knew anything about it, you know, for I'm no politician; still, I knew it was ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... Miss Dalziel," I said penitently. "We reserve an hour in the morning and another at bedtime for your uncle's prayers, but we had no idea you had them at afternoon tea, even in Scotland. I believe that you are chaffing, and came up only to swell the chorus. Come, let us all sing together ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... an afternoon tea—Mary Alice had been more bitterly conscious than ever before of her lack of charms and the bleak prospect that lack entailed upon her. For the tea was given for a girl who was visiting in town, a girl of a sort Mary ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... informed in current political affairs, but Peter, instead of joining the cheerful afternoon tea party at the close of the day, raked out a file of the Times from the library, and studied it carefully in his room. There were one or two items of news concerning which he made pencil notes. He had scarcely finished his task before a servant brought in ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tea was poured, had brought upon him an ignominious nickname. His title in full as engraved on his visiting cards, was Alfred Tennyson Wilbur, and a rude young man of the town had taken liberties with the initials, and declared they stood for Afternoon Tea Willie. ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... an afternoon tea?" he asked tartly. "With six major operations this morning and a probable meningitis diagnosis ahead of me this afternoon I think I might be spared the babblings of an hysterical nurse!" Casually over his shoulder he nodded at the girl. "You're a fool!" he said, ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... reported by Aunt Maria, was generally supposed to have terrified the burglars into flight, and much kudos accrued to him thereby. Some days later, however, when he hid dropped in to afternoon tea, and was making a mild curatorial joke about the moral courage required for taking the last piece of bread-and-butter, I felt constrained to remark dreamily, and as it were to the universe at large, "Mr. Hodgitts! you are brave! for my sake, do not ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... struck her steel against the stone, and sparks flew out which lighted the fibre so that it burst into flame. This was thrown into the bowl of oil, and she deftly began preparing tea. She served it in cups of grass, and Ted thought he had never tasted anything nicer than the cup of afternoon tea served in an eglu. ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... and glorious future before it. I am absurd, and have been so for very many years, and in very many ways. I have been an aesthete. I have lain upon hearth-rugs and eaten passion-flowers. I have clothed myself in breeches of white samite, and offered my friends yellow jonquils instead of afternoon tea. But when aestheticism became popular in Bayswater—a part of London built for the delectation of the needy rich—I felt that it was absurd no longer, and I turned to other things. It was then, one golden summer day, among the ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sort," retorted Mrs. Hewitt with an air of certainty. "Good-by, my dear. Give my love to Mrs. De Guenther. Perhaps when you get back I may give an afternoon tea and allow you to see Joy ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... witnesses and, if need be, to hear them, should report on the entire matter de novo. This motion, after the striking out of the words de novo and the insertion of ab initio, was finally carried, after which the faculty sank back completely exhausted into its chair, the need of afternoon tea and toast ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... connection, even at the risk of seeming to preach, let the advice be given that nothing should ever be put on top of a grand pianoforte: neither flowers, afternoon tea-sets, bird-cages, books, nor even an aquarium! For the lid is not merely a cover, but an additional sounding-board, and must always be in readiness to be so used. The pianoforte as a coloristic instrument, in short, is completely itself only when ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... seem brighter every day. There was the usual round of amusements —dinner-parties, amateur concerts, races, flower-shows, excursions to every point of interest within a day's drive, a military ball at the garrison-town twenty miles off, perennial croquet, and gossip, and afternoon tea-drinking in arbours or marquees in the gardens, and unlimited flirtation. It was impossible for the most exacting visitor to be ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the good things of this life so that they unfit me for real service. Do you know what was the matter with my heart when I came away? I do. It was high living. It was sitting with my legs under the mahogany of my millionaire parishioners' tables, driving in their limousines, drinking afternoon tea with their wives, letting them send me to Europe whenever I looked a bit pale. Soft! I was a down pillow, a lump of putty. I, who was supposed to be a fighter ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... be believed. Yet, in spite of the risk, it must be said plainly that at this point Denry actually thought of marriage. An absurd and childish thought, preposterously rash; but it came into his mind, and—what is more—it stuck there! He pictured marriage as a perpetual afternoon tea alone with an elegant woman, amid an environment of ribboned muslin. And the picture appealed to him very strongly. And Ruth appeared to him in a new light. It was perhaps the change in her voice that did it. She appeared to him at once as a creature very feminine and enchanting, and as a creature ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett |
