life one could not do better than
take Mr. Liversedge's dining-room when the family had assembled for the
midday meal. Picture a long and lofty room, lighted by windows which
opened upon a lawn and flower-garden, adorned with large oil paintings
(cattle-pieces and portraits) in massive and, for the most part,
tarnished frames, and furnished in the solidest of British
styles--mahogany chairs and table, an immense sideboard, a white marble
fireplace, and a chandelier hanging with ponderous menace above the
gleaming expanse of table-cloth. Here were seated eleven persons: Mr.
Liversedge and his wife, their seven children (four girls and three
boys), Miss Pope the governess, and Mr. Denzil Quarrier; waited upon by
two maid-servants, with ruddy cheeks, and in spotless attire. Odours of
roast meat filled the air. There was a jolly sound of knife-and-fork
play, of young voices laughing and chattering, of older ones in genial
colloquy. A great fire blazed and crackled up the chimney. Without, a
roaring wind stripped the autumnal leafage of the garden, and from time
to time drenched the windows with volleys of rain.

Tobias Liversedge was a man of substance, but in domestic habits he
followed the rule of the unpretentious middle-class. Breakfast at
eight, dinner at one, tea at five, supper at nine--such was the order
of the day that he had known in boyhood, and it suited him well enough
now that he was at the head of a household. The fare was simple, but
various and abundant; no dishes with foreign names, no drinks more
luxurious than sherry and claret. If he entertained guests, they were
people of his own kind, who thought more of the hearty welcome than of
what was set before them. His children were neither cockered nor held
in too strait a discipline; they learnt from their parents that
laughter was better than sighing, that it was good to be generous, that
they had superiors in the world as well as inferiors, that hard work
was the saving grace, and a lie the accursed thing. This training
seemed to agree with them, for one and all were pictures of health.
Tom, the first-born, numbered fifteen years; Daisy, the latest arrival,
had seen but three summers, yet she already occupied a high chair at
the dinner-table, and conducted herself with much propriety. The two
elder boys went to the Grammar School morning and afternoon; for the
other children there was Miss Pope, with her smile of decorum, eyes of
intelligence, and clear,