Everybody seemed to be talking at once, yet they all found time to eat.

The father talked so much that his daughter Edith took the carving-fork from him and served out the mutton-chops herself.

The mother, from the other end of the table, with tears in her eyes, continually asked me if I would not have something or other, and how I could ever screw up my courage to go about with an absolutely strange bear.
There was a young man, apparently the oldest son, with a fine, frank manner and very broad shoulders.

He was so wonderfully developed about the bust that he seemed almost deformed, his breast projecting so far that it gave him the appearance of being round-shouldered in front.
This, my practised eye told me, was the result of undue exercise in the direction of chest-expansion.

He was a good-natured fellow, and overlooked my not answering several of his questions, owing to the evident want of opportunity to do so.
There was a yellow-haired girl with a long plait down her back; there was a half-grown boy, wearing a blue calico shirt with a red cravat; there was a small girl who sat by her mother; and there was a young lady, very upright and slender, who did not seem to belong to the family, for she never used the words "father" and "mother," which were continually in the mouths of the others.