Tea-gowned

She wears her black silk every day, a trailin’ on the ground, / Leastwise, a trailin’ on the floor; ’tis called I b’lieve, tea-gowned, / An’ frills an’ lace, ’an hot-house flowers, such waste, it worried me, / Rememberin’ Jotham Peckham’s kin, as poor as poor could be.

“[…]Do you know,” and she turned to the group of tea-gowned dames and damsels who were making a move stairwards—“do you know that Mrs. Jackson Lafaye has arrived at last?[…]”

Over tea and buttered toast, with feet on the fender, slippered and tea-gowned, to the adjunct of the fragrant cigarette, what pleasanter theme than one’s neighbours’ faults and peccadilloes?

Lady Malcolm, presiding bejewelled and tea-gowned over a silver teatray, thought that Diana, well bred, well mannered, beautiful and seemingly biddable, would make an excellent wife for her good-looking son and encouraged them to wander on the hills in the long Scottish evenings.