Northbury was so completely out of the world that it only had a postal delivery twice a day.  The early post was delivered at eight o’clock, so that the good people of the place could discuss their little items of outside news over their breakfast-tables.  The postman went round with his evening delivery at seven.  He was not overwhelmed by the aristocracy of Rosendale Manor, and, notwithstanding Mrs. Bertram’s open annoyance, insisted on calling there last.  He said it suited him best to do so, and what suited Sammy Benjafield he was just as determined to do, as Mrs. Bertram was to carry out her own schemes.

Consequently, the evening letters never reached the Manor until between eight and half-past.  Mrs. Bertram and her daughters dined at seven.  They were the only people in Northbury who ate their dinner at that aristocratic hour; tea between four and five, and hot, substantial and unwholesome suppers were the order of the day with the Northbury folk. Very substantial these suppers were, and even the Rector was not proof against the hot lobster and rich decoctions of crab with which his flock favored him at these hours.

For the very reason, however, that heavy suppers were in vogue at Northbury, Mrs. Bertram determined to adhere to the refinement of a seven-o’clock dinner.  Very refined and very simple this dinner generally was.  The fare often consisting of soup made out of vegetables from the garden, with a very slight suspicion of what housekeepers call stock to start it; fish, which meant as often as not three simple but fresh herrings; a morsel of meat curried or hashed would generally follow; and dessert and sweets would in the summer be blended into one; strawberries, raspberries or gooseberries from the garden forming the necessary materials.  Cream did not accompany the strawberries, and the rich wine in the beautiful and curiously-cut decanters was placed on the table for show, not for use.

But then the dinners at the Manor were so exquisitely served.  Such napery, such china, such sparkling and elegant glass, and such highly-polished plate.  Poor little Clara, the serving-maid, who had not yet acquired the knack of telling a lie with sang froid absolutely trembled, as she spread out her snowy table-cloths, and laid her delicate china and glass and silver on the board.

“It don’t seem worth while,” she often remarked to the cook.  “For what’s an’ erring?  It seems wicked to eat an’ erring off sech plates as them.”

“It’s a way the quality have,” retorted Mrs. Masters, who had come from London with the Bertrams and did not mean to stay.  “They heats nothing, and they lives on sham.  Call this soup!  There, Clara, you’ll be a sham yourself before you has done with them.”

Clara thought this highly probable, but she was still young and romantic, and could do a great deal of living on make-beliefs, like many other girls all the world over.