fair to add that everything in the
room was perfectly clean, as was the coarse table linen in the dining
room.

The meals were in harmony with the rooms and furniture, consisting only
of the strict necessities, cooked with a Spartan disregard for such
sybarite foibles as seasoning or dressing. I believe there was a
substantial meal somewhere in the early morning hours, but I never
succeeded in getting down in time to inspect it. By successful bribery,
I induced one of the village belles, who served at table, to bring a cup
of coffee to my room. The first morning it appeared already poured out
in the cup, with sugar and cold milk added at her discretion. At one
o'clock a dinner was served, consisting of soup (occasionally), one meat
dish and attendant vegetables, a meagre dessert, and nothing else. At
half-past six there was an equally rudimentary meal, called "tea," after
which no further food was distributed to the inmates, who all, however,
seemed perfectly contented with this arrangement. In fact they
apparently looked on the act of eating as a disagreeable task, to be
hurried through as soon as possible that they might return to their
aimless rocking and chattering.

Instead of dinner hour being the feature of the day, uniting people
around an attractive table, and attended by conversation, and the meal
lasting long enough for one's food to be properly eaten, it was rushed
through as though we were all trying to catch a train. Then, when the
meal was over, the boarders relapsed into apathy again.

No one ever called this hospitable home a boarding-house, for the
proprietor was furious if it was given that name. He also scorned the
idea of keeping a hotel. So that I never quite understood in what
relation he stood toward us. He certainly considered himself our host,
and ignored the financial side of the question severely. In order not to
hurt his feelings by speaking to him of money, we were obliged to get our
bills by strategy from a male subordinate. Mine host and his family were
apparently unaware that there were people under their roof who paid them
for board and lodging. We were all looked upon as guests and
"entertained," and our rights impartially ignored.

Nothing, I find, is so distinctive of New England as this graceful
veiling of the practical side of life. The landlady always reminded me,
by her manner, of Barrie's description of the bill-sticker's wife who
"cut" her husband when she ch