" 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, --

" The tea was served out of a majestic delft tea-pot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shejiherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot, from a huge copper tea-kettle, which might make the beaux of the present day sweat merely to look at it ! To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum." In such parties propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed ; " the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs.

and knit their own woolen stockings, speaking but little, and chiefly in brief answers to questions put to them, few and far between. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fire-places were decorated, wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously portrayed."