Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/232

 neat little French tray. When I go on visits to friends in France, I find nothing so charming as to be wakened every morning by a beaming Frenchwoman of the people, whose manners are always so perfect, who is a human being, and not, like the well-trained English servant, a machine; who opens the shutters and lets in light with her fresh, soft "Good-morning," and approaches the bed with a small, dainty tray, exquisitely laid; such coffee or chocolate as you will get nowhere else, and everything so trim and minute—the two lumps of sugar, the tiny pat of butter, the hot roll—what ogre could demand more on returning from the land of dreams? Naturally, the English fashion calls for a more liberal supply, because there you are cleansed, combed, and buckled in the shackles of civilisation downstairs, perhaps after a morning run—and the scent of bacon and eggs is refreshing to the keen nostril. But more than this neat little French tray contains would be too much in a bedroom, and nobody but that Irish girl I referred to, with morbid taste, could clamour for a sugar-bowl to sweeten a single cup of coffee.

Then mid-day, when the sun is high in the heavens, gathers the family round the second breakfast-table. Amongst the well-to-do this is a meal to shame the frugal British luncheon. It consists of an entrée, a roast dish, vegetables,