The potatoes looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam.

There were mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin pan.

One block of bread was by the lonely plate.

Neither hot nor cold, the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and made no pretensions to allure it.
The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for the poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew so little how a dinner of any sort should be treated.

He strode to the windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell, and said,-- "Dahlia, there--I'm going to dine with you, my love.