ose happy days, a well-regulated family always
rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed
at sundown. Dinner was invariably a private meal, and
the fat old burghers showed incontestable symptoms of
disapprobation and uneasiness on being surprised by a 5
visit from a neighbor on such occasions. But though our
worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving
dinners, yet they kept up the social bonds of intimacy by
occasional banquetings, called tea parties.

As this is the first introduction of those delectable orgies 10
which have since become so fashionable in this city, I am
conscious my fair readers will be very curious to receive
information on the subject. Sorry am I that there will be
but little in my description calculated to excite their admiration.
I can neither delight them with accounts of suffocating 15
crowds, nor brilliant drawing rooms, nor towering
feathers, nor sparkling diamonds, nor immeasurable trains.

I can detail no choice anecdotes of scandal, for in those
primitive times the simple folk were either too stupid or
too good-natured to pull each other's characters to pieces; 20
nor can I furnish any whimsical anecdotes of brag--how
one lady cheated or another bounced into a passion; for
as yet there was no junto of dulcet old dowagers who met
to win each other's money and lose their own tempers at
a card table.

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the
higher classes, or _noblesse_; that is to say, such as kept their
own cows and drove their own wagons. The company 5
commonly assembled at three o'clock and went away about
six, unless it was winter time, when the fashionable hours
were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before
dark. I do not find that they ever treated their company
to ice creams, jellies, or sillabubs, or regaled them with 10
musty almonds, moldy raisins, or sour oranges, as is often
done in the present age of refinement. Our ancestors were
fond of more sturdy, substantial fare. The tea table was
crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices
of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming 15
in gravy.

The company, being seated around the genial board and
each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in
launching at the fattest pieces of this