since, and I am glad to have thus lightened myself of it. What would
one better do in such circumstances? Is history written in this way?

The custom of our family in America had been to take all our meals
together; but in England the elders take lunch at noon, tea at four or
five, and dinner at seven or eight, while the children dine at noon
and sup at six. This arrangement was adopted in Rock Park. My father
used to leave home for the consulate at nine, and return--unless kept
away by an official or social engagement--at five or six. There was
appointed for us children a nurse or governess, to oversee and
administer our supplies; our father and mother dining, with such
guests as might happen to be present, late in the evening. We were
sometimes allowed to come in at dessert, to eat a few nuts and raisins
and exhibit our infantile good manners. This domestic separation was a
matter of much speculation arid curiosity to our immature minds; we
used to haunt the hall through which the servants carried the dishes,
smoking and fragrant, from the kitchen to the dining-room, and once in
a while the too-indulgent creatures would allow us to steal something.
How ravishingly delicious things thus acquired taste! And we,
fancying, of course, that they must be not less delicious for the
folks at table, used to marvel how they could ever bear to leave off
eating. The dinners were certainly rather elaborate compared with the
archaic repasts of Salem or of Concord; but they were as far inferior
in grandeur and interminableness to the astonishing banquets at which,
in some great houses, our father and mother were present. Consider,
for example, this dinner, in no way remarkable among such functions,
at the Hollands's, about this time. There were twelve persons at
table. The service was of solid silver; two enormous covers were on
the table before the soup was served; being removed, they revealed
turbot and fried fish. Then followed boiled turkey and roast goose,