More such remarks follow: more dishes; ten times as much meat as is needful for the company.

Mr.Washington does not embark in the general conversation much, but he and Mr.Talmadge, and Major Danvers, and the Postmaster, are deep in talk about roads, rivers, conveyances, sumpter-horses and artillery train; and the provincial militia Colonel has bits of bread laid at intervals on the table before him, and stations marked out, on which he has his finger, and regarding which he is talking to his brother aides-de-camp, till a negro servant, changing the courses, brushes off the Potomac with a napkin, and sweeps up the Ohio in a spoon.
At the end of dinner, Mr.Broadbent leaves his place and walks up behind the Lieutenant-Governor's chair, where he says grace, returning to his seat and resuming his knife and fork when this work of devotion is over.
And now the sweets and puddings are come, of which I can give you a list, if you like; but what young lady cares for the puddings of to-day, much more for those which were eaten a hundred years ago, and which Madam Esmond had prepared for her guests with so much neatness and skill?
Then, the table being cleared, Nathan, her chief manager, lays a glass to every person, and fills his mistress's.

Bowing to the company, she says she drinks but one toast, but knows how heartily all the gentlemen present will join her.

Then she calls, "His Majesty," bowing to Mr.Braddock, who with his aides-de-camp and the colonial gentlemen all loyally repeat the name of their beloved and gracious Sovereign.

And hereupon, having drunk her glass of wine and saluted all the company, the widow retires between a row of negro servants, performing one of her very handsomest curtsies at the door.
The kind Mistress of Castlewood bore her part in the entertainment with admirable spirit, and looked so gay and handsome, and spoke with such cheerfulness and courage to all her company, that the few ladies who were present at the dinner could not but congratulate Madam Esmond upon the elegance of the feast, and especially upon her manner of presiding at it.