If you went to spend a day any where, you were received in a manner, we should think, very cold. No one rose to welcome you; no one wondered you had not come sooner, or apologized for any deficiency in your entertainment. Dinner, which was very early, was served exactly in the same manner as if there were only the family. The house, indeed, was so exquisitely neat and well regulated, that you could not surprise them; and they saw each other so often and so easily, that intimates made no difference. Of strangers they were shy—not by any means from want of hospitality, but from a consciousness that people who had little to value themselves on but their knowledge of the modes and ceremonies of polished life, disliked their sincerity, and despised their simplicity. If you showed no insolent wonder, but easily and quietly adopted their manners, you would receive from them not only very great civility but much essential kindness. Whoever has not common sense and common gratitude enough to pay this tribute of accommodation to those among whom he is destined for the time to live, must of course be an insulated, discontented being—and come home railing at the people whose social comforts he disdained to partake. After sharing this plain and unceremonious dinner, which might, by the by, chance to be a very good one, but was invariably that which was meant for the family, tea was served in at a very early hour; and here it was that the distinction shown to strangers commenced. Tea here, was a perfect regale, accompanied by various sorts of cakes unknown to us, cold pastry, and great quantities of sweetmeats and preserved fruits of various kinds, and plates of hickory and other nuts, ready cracked. In all manner of confectionary and pastry, these people excelled; and having fruit in great abundance, which cost them nothing, and getting sugar home at an easy rate, in return for their exports to the West-Indies, the quantity of these articles used in families, otherwise plain and frugal, was astonishing. Tea was never unaccompanied with some of these petty articles; but for strangers, a great display was made. If you staid supper, you were sure of a most substantial though plain one. In this meal they departed, out of compliment to the strangers, from their usual simplicity. Having dined between twelve and one, you were quite prepared for it. You had either game or poultry roasted, and always shell-fish in the season; you had also fruit in abundance. All this with much neatness but no form. The seeming coldness with which you were first received, wore off by degrees. They could not accommodate their topics to you, and scarcely attempted it. But the conversation of the old, though limited in regard to subjects, was rational and easy, and had in it an air of originality and truth, not without its attractions. That of the young was natural and playful, yet full of localities, which lessened its