there is a kind of _bon camaraderie_ feeling between parents and
young folks here, and an utter absence of veneration on the part of
the latter. So even in the most wealthy families it seldom
happens that the parents dine in solemn state alone, while the
children are having a simple tea in another room: they all
assemble around the same board, and the young ones partake of the
same dishes, and sustain their parts in the conversation right
nobly.

But, given a very particular and rather irritable father, and
seven children with excellent lungs and tireless tongues, what
could you do but give them separate rooms to take their meals in?

Captain Woolcot, the father, in addition to this division, had had
thick felt put over the swing door upstairs, but .the noise used to
float down to the dining-room in cheerful, unconcerned manner
despite it.

It was a nursery without a nurse, too, so that partly accounted
for it. Meg, the eldest, was only sixteen, and could not be
expected to be much of a disciplinarian, and the slatternly but
good-natured girl, who was supposed to combine the duties of
nursery-maid and housemaid, had so much to do in her second
capacity that the first suffered considerably. She used to lay
the nursery meals when none of the little girls could be found to
help her, and bundle on the clothes of the two youngest in the
morning, but beyond that the seven had to manage for themselves.

The mother? you ask.