CHAPTER XVII.
The maid-servant (for Jackeymo was in the fields) brought the table under the awning, and with the English luxury of tea, there were other drinks as cheap and as grateful on summer evenings,--drinks which Jackeymo had retained and taught from the customs of the South,--unebriate liquors, pressed from cooling fruits, sweetened with honey, and deliciously iced: ice should cost nothing in a country in which one is frozen up half the year! And Jackeymo, too, had added to our good, solid, heavy English bread preparations of wheat much lighter, and more propitious to digestion,--with those crisp grissins, which seem to enjoy being eaten, they make so pleasant a noise between one's teeth.
The parson esteemed it a little treat to drink tea with the Riccaboccas.
There was something of elegance and grace in that homely meal at the poor exile's table, which pleased the eye as well as taste.

And the very utensils, plain Wedgwood though they were, had a classical simplicity, which made Mrs.Hazeldean's old India delf, and Mrs.Dale's best Worcester china, look tawdry and barbarous in comparison.

For it was Flaxman who gave designs to Wedgwood, and the most truly refined of all our manufactures in porcelain (if we do not look to the mere material) is in the reach of the most thrifty.
The little banquet was at first rather a silent one; but Riccabocca threw off his gloom, and became gay and animated.

Then poor Mrs.
Riccabocca smiled, and pressed the grissins; and Violante, forgetting all her stateliness, laughed and played tricks on the parson, stealing away his cup of warm tea when his head was turned, and substituting iced cherry-juice.

Then the parson got up and ran after Violante, making angry faces, and Violante dodged beautifully, till the parson, fairly tired out, was too glad to cry "Peace," and come back to the cherry-juice.