Mr. Gumberg paused a moment, and then continued his story: 'The dining-room, to which we were bidden by the ringing of a bell, must have been once, from its appearance, the scene of many great banquets; but I noted that it only contained two long tables, composed of unpainted boards set on rough trestles, while the walls, hung with maroon Utrecht velvet, presented to my eyes an extraordinary appearance, each picture--and there were many--being hidden from sight, as were those in the hall, while on a long strip of white cloth, which ran right round the room above the wainscotting, was written: "_Self-denial is the basis of spiritual perfection. He that truly denies himself is arrived at a state of great freedom and safety._" 'I noticed that the tables were laid for a considerable company, and soon there walked slowly in some forty men and women, all dressed in what seemed to me a very peculiar manner. There were many more women than men, and they sat at separate tables, Mrs. Oglethorpe taking the head of the one, while her husband, with my uncle at his right hand, presided over the other. The food was plain, but of good quality; it was eaten in silence, and while we ate the daughter of the house, Adelaide Oglethorpe, sat on a high rostrum and read aloud from a book which I have since ascertained to have been Mr. William Law's "Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life." 'This reading surprised me very much, and, boy-like, I wondered anxiously whether the girl was to be deprived of her evening meal; but after we had finished supper she put a mark in the book she had been reading, and, as the others all walked out, took her place at a little table I had before scarcely noticed, and there, waited on most assiduously by her father, she enjoyed a meal rather more dainty in character than that which the rest of us had eaten. Looking back, George,' observed Mr. Gumberg thoughtfully, 'I think I may say that this was the first time in my life that I realized how even the most rigid human beings sometimes fall away, and this almost unconsciously, from their own standards.