His " Knickerbocker " is made to say of the " grand parlour :" " In this sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter, excepting the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week for the purj)ose of giving it a thorough cleaning and putting things to rights, always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering lightly on their stocking feet. After scrubbing the floor and sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles and curves with a broom ; after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fire-place, the window-shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up, until the revolution of time brought round the weekly cleaning day.

"As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and most generally lived in the kitchen . . . The fire-places were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay, even the cat and dog enjoyed a community of privilege, and each a right to a corner.

" In these primitive days, a well-regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven and went to bed at sundown." Our frugal ancestors were averse, it seems, to giving dinners, but the wealthier classes " that is to say, such as kept their own cows^ and drove their own wagons," gave tea-parties. On these occasions the company assembled about three o'clock, and went away at six -- even earlier in wintertime. " Knickerbocker " describes these parties, --