The serving of a cup of tea is an interesting office for the home maker, who finds in it, beyond the simple act of hospitality, a field for practical and artistic furnishing.

The evolution of the afternoon tea table is in many homes the outcome of experiments that work themselves out in some characteristic style.

Afternoon tea on the porch may be the most delightful of feasts, if the details of its service have been made a matter of forethought and taste. A small table of bamboo and Japanese matting is light enough to be moved about easily, and there are willow three-tier stands for extra cups and saucers. A Chinese hour-glass chair is a picturesque accompaniment to the tea table, with the advantages of lightness and coolness for warm weather. The equipment of linen and china for the porch tea table may be selected with reference to the location, as colour effects out-of-doors may be deeper and more striking than those introduced in the interior of the house. The delicate pink and white or green and white tones that are so pleasing in the subdued light of indoors appear faded in the stronger, intense piazza light. Conventional shapes and colourings may be quite set aside in choosing the tea service for the porch and deep ecru or brown linen may be adopted for tray cloths, napkins, table spreads and doilies.

A rustic arbour shaded with climbing roses and vines is an ideal setting for the tea table during the later hours of warm days. To avoid the trouble of transferring the tea things to and from the house, if the arbour is not close at hand, a waterproof locker may be built into one corner. A rustic table made of hickory or silver birch is durable and convenient for this situation, and the garden tables and chairs imported from England and painted white or green are distinctively attractive. Rockers and armchairs may have their comfort increased by the addition of pillows and cushions brought out from the house.

As the afternoon cup of tea is a movable feast, it is often served in the parlour or other formal room of the home. For such occasional use a table need not be kept set with the dishes and other paraphernalia of the tea service, to give a chance for the dust to gather and disarrangements to occur that would disturb the orderliness of the room.

A tray may be arranged, however, in the dining room, with all the necessary articles for serving the tea, and carried into the parlour, to be removed when its act of usefulness is over. The point to be met to make this manner of serving tea successful is to have some table in readiness in the parlour to receive the tray. This is best accomplished by the possession of one of the old-fashioned tip-tables reproduced now by furniture manufacturers, with an arrangement under the top that unlocks and fastens automatically. The upright position when the table is not required for active service will insure its readiness at any moment for the tea tray, and its surface of polished mahogany, decorated with a band of inlay or a centre rosette, makes the tip-table an artistic acquisition for the parlour or drawing room. The round top, about twenty-four inches in diameter, is the best variety to use in connection with a large tray, but sometimes an oval top suits some especial place in the room better than the circular style.

This method of serving tea has brought the tray into a popularity that it has not known since the days of our great-grandmothers. Then the establishing of the dining table was a matter of family pride, and silver and linen heirlooms were regarded with profound reverence. The large silver trays of Sheffield plate may still be found as inheritances from past generations, and silversmiths now try to produce as good ones in imitation. These trays arc too heavy for the afternoon tea table in the parlour; but an excellent substitute is the mahogany tray with a guard of the same material and handles of brass. Sometimes the wood has a sheet of plain glass laid over it as a protection from hot dishes, but this is apt to make it too heavy for easy lifting. Copper trays in hammered work, round or oval, may be found, and round ones in a light, figured brass made by the Japanese. A lacquered tray by the same people is a delicate artistic addition for the serving of tea, but it requires an asbestos mat to protect its fine surface. The parlour tea service naturally makes a claim on the best that the house affords in china and linen. A set of Apostle spoons that has been gathered during a Continental tour, souvenir spoons from different places in one's own country, and others that have been handed down from earlier eras of tea makers, may distinguish this special service. Old pieces of china that speak of bygone history are also of interest here. Most precious of all, because of its rarity, is the bit of homespun linen that may adorn the tray, the work of some thrifty, industrious ancestor.

In some households the tea table has a daily usage at four or five o'clock, to break the long hours between an early luncheon and a late dinner. A two-tier table of oak or mahogany is helpful for this every-day service. The top is made considerably lower than in the ordinary small stand, so that a low chair or rocker may be used by the person who pours tea. Its size is ample for tea-making things, and an under shelf is added for extra cups and saucers, and supplies of crackers and sugar.

The selection of china for an every-day tea table should accord with the idea for which it is adopted. Simple decoration that is pretty and serviceable should be the key-note, and conventional fittings must not be too rigorously followed at a loss of original charm. For a tete-a-tete cup of tea the silver tea ball answers all the purposes of the teapot Tight tin boxes of sweet and plain biscuit may be ready, to fill the cracker jar. and a small jar of club cheese or Scotch marmalade, and Indian preserves and rice wafers may be at hand for an emergency luncheon at the afternoon tea table.

In a home where the afternoon tea was a daily institution a special room was reserved for the serving, and the furnishings carried out on a different plan from any of the other rooms in the house. The walls were covered with a warm, light-grey paper almost like parchment, and upon this background some old Japanese prints framed in narrow gold bands were hung. The colours that appeared in the prints were repeated in the curtains and rugs: pink in a fine cotton crepe, blues and greens mingled in the rug. The space between the two front windows was fitted with narrow shelves and painted a cool grey like the woodwork. Some Japanese pottery was ranged on the shelves in colours and shapes that were fitting additions to the refined colourings elsewhere in the room. In the wide window sills some small jardinieres held ferns in the winter months, hyacinths and tulips in the spring and pansies in the summer. On dark afternoons the Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling were lighted, and candles with soft pink shades were placed on the tea table. The furniture was chosen chiefly from the Indian rattan make, chairs, lounges, stools and benches, with a wooden settle built entirely around one angle of the room and painted like the woodwork.