. . . The grave butler brings in a
tray with cups and saucers and an urn, and leaves the room. H. makes
tea, pours it out, and takes it to each person, with a little morsel
of spread bread. S. and A. look about for empty cups, and return them
to the tray. There is no fuss; it is all enfamille; and the tray is
borne off again by the butler, stepping with noiseless feet. There is
no noise at any time anywhere in the house, except the angry squall of
the cockatoo, who gets into a violent rage once in a while with some
invisible foe, and tears his cage, and erects the long feathers on his
head like so many swords drawn out of their scabbards. . . . The
Brights treated me in the sweetest way, as if they had always known
me, and I felt quite at home. H. is to go to her aunt's fancy ball as
a mermaid; and on Tuesday I helped sprinkle her sea-green veil with
pearls.
This family is very charming. Mrs. Bright is the lady of ladies; her
children are all clever (in an English sense), and one son a prodigy.
. . . They are all good as well as clever; well educated,
accomplished, and most entirely united. It is all peace and love and
happiness there, and I cannot discover where the shadow is. Health,
wealth, cultivation, and all the Christian graces and virtues--I
cannot see the trail of the serpent anywhere in that Paradise.
. . . Mrs. Bright and I had some nice little talks. She told me
elaborately how she admired and loved Mr. Hawthorne's books; how she
had found expressed in them what she had found nowhere else; with what
rapture one of her sisters read, re-read, and read again "The
Wonder-Book;" .
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