The family only met together at dinner-time, and then they would sit round the table with sour, ill-tempered faces, the younger ones grumbling and whining at the meagre food, the elder girls with their appetites spoilt by a surfeit of sweetmeats, every one moody and bored, as if they found each other's company intolerable, and all of them eagerly awaiting the moment when they might return to their engrossing pursuits again.
There are certain happy-minded people who never will believe what they don't like.

They won't believe that any one is angry with them until he actually treads on their corns; they fail to observe whether their acquaintances snub them in the street; they never notice any change, however nearly it concerns them, even if it be in the bosom of their families, unless somebody calls their attention to it; and they will rather invent all sorts of excuses for the most glaring faults than put themselves to the trouble of trying to correct them.
Providence, as a rule, endows those people who have to live by their labour with a beneficial instinct, which makes them find their pride and joy in the work they have accomplished.

When the whole family meets together in the evening, each member boasts of how much he has done in the course of the day; and how good it is that it should be so! Now, the Meyers lacked this instinct.

The curse of the expulsion from Paradise seemed to rest upon _their_ labours.

None of them ever boasted of having made any progress.