But It Has Been A Poor
Season For Canaries, And A Still Poorer One For Lodgers; For People
In These Degenerate Days Prefer To Be Nearer The Hotels And The Mild
Gaieties Of The Larger Settlements.
It is all very well so long as
I remain with her, and she wishes fervently that that may
Be for
ever; for never, she says, eloquently, never in all her Cheltenham
and Belvern experience, has she encountered such a jewel of a lodger
as her dear Miss 'Amilton, so little trouble, and always a bit of
praise for her plain cooking, and a pleasant word for the children,
to whom most lodgers object, and such an interest in the cow and the
fowl and the garden and the canaries, and such kindness in painting
the name of the cottage, so that it is the finest thing in the
village, and nobody can get past the 'ouse without stopping to gape
at it! But when her American lodger leaves her, she asks, - and who
is she that can expect to keep a beautiful young lady who will be
naming her own cottage and painting signboards for herself before
long, likely? - but when her American lodger is gone, how is she,
Mrs. Bobby, to put by a few shillings a month towards the debt on
the cottage? These are some of the problems she presents to me. I
have turned them over and over in my mind as I have worked, and even
asked Willie Beresford in my weekly letter what he could suggest.
Of course he could not suggest anything: men never can; although he
offered to come there and lodge for a month at twenty-five pounds a
week. All at once, one morning, a happy idea struck me, and I ran
down to Mrs. Bobby, who was weeding the onion-bed in the back
garden.
"Mrs. Bobby," I said, sitting down comfortably on the edge of the
lettuce-frame, "I am sure I know how you can earn many a shilling
during the summer and autumn months, and you must begin the
experiment while I am here to advise you. I want you to serve five-
o'clock tea in your garden."
"But, miss, thanking you kindly, nobody would think of stoppin' 'ere
for a cup of tea once in a twelvemonth."
"You never know what people will do until you try them. People will
do almost anything, Mrs. Bobby, if you only put it into their heads,
and this is the way we shall make our suggestion to the public. I
will paint a second signboard to hang below 'Comfort Cottage.' It
will be much more beautiful than the other, for it shall have a
steaming kettle on it, and a cup and saucer, and the words 'Tea
Served Here' underneath, the letters all intertwined with tea-
plants. I don't know how tea-plants look, but then neither does the
public. You will set one round table on the porch, so that if it
threatens rain, as it sometimes does, you know, in England, people
will not be afraid to sit down; and the other you will put under the
yew-tree near the gate.
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