University of Virginia Library

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DOMESTIC SCENE.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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DOMESTIC SCENE.

The family meeting was warm and affectionate; as the
evening was far advanced, the Squire would not permit


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us to change our travelling dresses, but ushered us at once
to the company, which was assembled in a large old-fashioned
hall. It was composed of different branches of
a numerous family connexion, where there were the
usual proportion of old uncles and aunts, comfortable
married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming country
cousins, half-fledged striplings, and bright-eyed boarding
school hoydens. They were variously occupied;
some at a round game of cards; others conversing around
the fire-place; at one end of the hall was a group of the
young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender
and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game;
and a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and
tattered dolls about the floor, showed traces of a troop of
little fairy beings, who having frolicked through a happy
day, had been carried off to slumber through a peaceful
night.