In short, sir, this young gentleman’s failing is, an immoderate indulgence of his palate.  The first time he dined with us, he thought it necessary to extenuate the length of time he kept the dinner on the table, by declaring that he had taken a very long walk in the morning, and came in fasting; but as that excuse could not serve above once or twice at most, he has latterly dropped the mask altogether, and chosen to appear in his own proper colors, without reserve or apology.

You cannot imagine how unpleasant his conduct has become.  His way of staring at the dishes as they are brought in, has absolutely something immodest in it:  it is like the stare of an impudent man of fashion at a fine woman, when she first comes into a room.  I am positively in pain for the dishes, and cannot help thinking they have consciousness, and will be put out of countenance, he treats them so like what they are not.

Then again he makes no scruple of keeping a joint of meat on the table, after the cheese and fruit are brought in, till he has what he calls done with it.  Now how awkward this looks, where there are ladies, you may judge, Mr. Reflector,—­how it disturbs the order and comfort of a meal.  And yet I always make a point of helping him first, contrary to all good manners,—­before any of my female friends are helped, that he may avoid this very error.  I wish he would eat before he comes out.

What makes his proceedings more particularly offensive at our house is, that my husband, though out of common politeness he is obliged to set dishes of animal food before his visitors, yet himself and his whole family (myself included) feed entirely on vegetables.  We have a theory, that animal food is neither wholesome nor natural to man; and even vegetables we refuse to eat until they have undergone the operation of fire, in consideration of those numberless little living creatures which the glass helps us to detect in every fibre of the plant or root before it be dressed.  On the same theory we boil our water, which is our only drink, before we suffer it to come to table.  Our children are perfect little Pythagoreans:  it would do you good to see them in their nursery, stuffing their dried fruits, figs, raisins, and milk, which is the only approach to animal food which is allowed.  They have no notion how the substance of a creature that ever had life can become food for another creature.  A beefsteak is an absurdity to them; a mutton-chop, a solecism in terms; a cutlet, a word absolutely without any meaning; a butcher is nonsense, except so far as it is taken for a man who delights in blood, or a hero.  In this happy state of innocence we have kept their minds, not allowing them to go into the kitchen, or to hear of any preparations for the dressing of animal food, or even to know that such things are practised.  But as a state of ignorance is incompatible with a certain age, and as my eldest girl, who is ten years old next Midsummer,