It is 10 A.M. in October: family prayers, usual in nine country-houses out of ten, which a guest can attend or not as he pleases, are over. The company is gradually gathering in the breakfast-room. It is an ample apartment, paneled with oak and hung with family pictures. If you have any appreciation for fine plate--and you are to be pitied if you have not--you will mark the charming shape and exquisite chasing of the antique urn and other silver vessels, which shine as brilliantly as on the day they left the silversmiths to Her Majesty, Queen Anne. No "Brummagem" patterns will you find here. On the table at equidistant points stand two tiny tables or dumb-waiters, which are made to revolve. On these are placed sugar, cream, butter, preserves, salt, pepper, mustard, etc., so that every one can help himself without troubling others--a great desideratum, for many people are of the same mind on this point as a well-known English family, of whom it was once observed that they were very nice people, but didn't like being bored to pass the mustard. On the sideboard are three beautiful silver dishes with spirit-lamps beneath them. Let us look under their covers. Broiled chicken, fresh mushrooms on toast, and stewed kidney. On a larger dish is fish, and ranged behind these hot viands are cold ham, tongue, pheasant and game-pie. On huge platters of wood, with knives to correspond, are farm-house brown bread and white bread, whilst on the breakfast-table itself you will find hot rolls, toast--of which two or three fresh relays are brought in during breakfast--buttered toast, muffins and the freshest of eggs. The hot dishes at breakfast are varied almost every morning, and where there is a good cook a variety of some twenty dishes is made. Marmalade (Marie Malade) of oranges--said to have been originally prepared for Mary queen of Scots when ill, and introduced by her into Scotland--and "jams" of apricot and other fruit always form a part of an English or Scotch breakfast. The living is just as good--often better--among the five-thousand-pounds-a-year gentry as among the very wealthy: the only difference lies in the number of servants and guests. The luncheon-hour is from one to two. At luncheon there will be a roast leg of mutton or some such _pièce de résistance_, and a made dish, such as minced veal--a dish, by the way, not the least understood in this country, where it is horribly mangled--two hot dishes of meat and several cold, and various sorts of pastry. These, with bread, butter, fruit, cheese, sherry, port, claret and beer, complete the meal.