her
own words:

"They were exceedingly social, and visited each other frequently,
besides the regular assembling together in their porches every
evening.

"If you went to spend a day anywhere, 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 was so exquisitely neat and well regulated that
you could not surprise these people; they saw each other so often
and so easily that intimates made no difference. Of strangers
they were shy; not by any means of 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....

"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, being served up with various sorts of cakes unknown to
us, cold pastry, and great quantities of sweet meats and
preserved fruits of various kinds, and plates of hickory and
other nuts ready cracked. In all manner of confectionery and
pastry these people excelled."[213]

To the Puritan this manner of living evidently seemed ungodly, and
perhaps the citizens of New Amsterdam were a trifle lax not only in
their appetite for the things of this world, but also in their
indifference toward the Sabbath. As Madam Knight observes in her
_Journal_: "There are also Dutch and divers conventicles, as they call
them, viz., Baptist, Quaker, etc. They are not strict in keeping the
Sabbath, as in Boston and other places where I had been, but seemed to
deal with exactness as far as I see or deal with."

But the kindly sociableness of these Dutch prevented any decidedly
vicious tendency among them, and went far toward making amends for any
real or supposed laxity in religious principles. Even as children, this
social nature was consciously trained among them, and so closely did the
little ones become attached to one another that marriage meant not at
all the abrupt change and departure from former ways that it is rather
commonly considered to mean to-day. Says Mrs. Grant:

"The childr