it renders young people hateful in their appearance, since nothing can be
more unladylike or disagreeable, than the circumstance of being called to
speak when the mouth is full, or displaying the greediness of their
appetite, by cramming between meals, stealing out of a room to fill the
mouth in the passage, or silently moving the jaws about, and being obliged
to blush with shame when caught in such disgraceful tricks.

In order to guard against this habit, Mrs. Harewood positively forbade her
servants from bringing any thing of the kind into the house; but poor
Zebby, from habit, still obeyed her young Missy, and, besides, she had no
idea that the enjoyments of fortune were good for any thing else than to
pamper the appetite; so that it was a long time before she could be brought
to desist from so pernicious a practice. As, however, the mind of Matilda
strengthened, and she began to employ herself diligently in those new
branches of education now imparted to her, she insensibly became weaned
from this bad practice; and at length, inspired with a sincere desire to
imitate her young friends, she broke herself entirely from this disgusting
habit, and willingly adopted, in every thing, the simple wholesome fare
partaken by her young friends.

It was undoubtedly owing to this temperance that she preserved her health,
and even enjoyed it more than ever, notwithstanding the change of climate;
but, alas! the good sense, resolution, and forbearance she thus acted with,
was not followed by the humble companion of her voyage.

The change Zebby experienced in Mr. Harewood's comfortable kitchen, from
the simple food to which, as a slave, she had been accustomed in the West
Indies, was still greater, though in an exactly contrary line, than that of
her young lady. Zebby soon learned to eat of the good roast and boiled she
sat down to, and exchanged the simple beverage of water for porter and
beer, in consequence of which she became much disordered in her health;
and when Mrs. Harewood prescribed a little necessary physic, as her mild
persuasions were enforced by no threat, and the prescription appeared to
the unenlightened negro a kind of punishment she had no inclination to
endure, there was no getting her to swallow the bitter but salutary
potion.

Zebby had been a long time feverish and subject to headaches, when the
circumstance mentioned in the last chapter took place, which so exhilarated
her spirits, that she declared she