"At a very early hour in the morning, the alarum called the maids and their mistress also; and if the former were tardy, a louder alarum, and more formidable, was heard chiding the delay--not that scolding was peculiar to any occasion, it regularly went on through all the day, like bells on harness, inspiriting the work whether it was done ill or well. After the important business of the dairy and a hasty breakfast, their respective employments were again resumed; that which the mistress took for her especial privilege being the scrubbing the floors of the state apartments. A new servant, ignorant of her presumption, was found one morning on her knees, hard at work on the floor of one of these preserves, and was thus addressed by her mistress:--'_You_ wash such floors as these? Give me the brush this instant, and troop to the scullery, and wash that, madam!... As true as G--d's in heaven, here comes Lord Rochford to call on Mr. Tovell. Here, take my mantle,'--a blue woolen apron--'and I'll go to the door.' "If the sacred apartments had not been opened, the family dined in this wise: the heads seated in the kitchen at an old table; the farm-men standing in the adjoining scullery, with the door open; the female servants at a side-table, called a _bouter_; with the principal at the table, perchance some traveling rat-catcher, or tinker, or farrier, or an occasional gardener in his shirt-sleeves, his face probably streaming with perspiration. My father well describes, in The Widow's Tale, my mother's situation, when living in her younger days at Parham: 'But when the men beside their station took, The maidens with them, and with these the cook; When one huge wooden bowl before them stood, Filled with large balls of farinaceous food; With bacon, mass saline! where never lean Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen: When, from a single horn, the parties drew Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new; When the coarse cloth she saw with many a stain, Soiled by rude hands who cut and came again; She could not breathe, but with a heavy sigh, Reined the fair neck, and shut the offended eye; She minced the sanguine flesh in frustrums fine, And wondered much to see the _creatures_ dine.'