Three generations

80 A YOUNG COUPLE
town schools, and to attend their larger, less select
parties. However, my mother was quick of wit, and
possessed of much adaptability of character, so as to
suit herself easily to new surroundings. She rose
rapidly to the heights of intelligence and good manners
presented to her as an example. Both she and my father
were of an age and were of such sympathetic natures as
to get rid speedily of superficial rusticities, and to value
keenly the gaiety of the town, and to become one of
the most popular couples of the younger set. Soon
my mother was the favourite chaperon at the winter
assemblies, the most successful lady-president over
the charitable soup-kitchens.
The family life of the town's middle class was not
unlike that of the country, except that the hours of the
three meals — breakfast, dinner, and supper — were not
the same. Tea was a fourth meal — a regular meal,
not an afternoon refreshment — but, as a rule, it was
only the women and children who sat round the
central table, with its prominent tea-tray and its array
of plates, bearing its variety of tea-bread, butter,
and preserves. The breakfast and the dinner, both
early, were the substantial meals ; the supper was a
light and simple affair. Even in houses of good
standing it frequently consisted solely of a bowl of
porridge or "sowens," served in soup-plates and
supped with milk ; or of a dish of herrings, fresh, salt,
or red (cured), to be eaten with new potatoes when
in season; or of "bread and cheese and radishes,"
very much as they were favoured by Cowper and
Mrs. Unwin. Luncheon did not exist. One is tempted
to think the cost of living in professional classes must
be about doubled by our modern practice.
Even at social gatherings the entertainments were