Then, after dinner, he always walked up and down the drawing-room between us chatting till tea-time.
Our noisy mirth, his wretched puns, so many a minute, so many an hour! Then we sang, none of us having any voices, and he, if possible, least of all; but still the old nursery songs were set to music, and chanted.
My father, sitting at his own table, used to look up occasionally, and push back his spectacles, and, I dare say, wonder in his heart how we could so waste our time.

After tea the book then in reading was produced.

Your uncle very seldom read aloud himself of an evening, but walked about listening, and commenting, and drinking water.
"The Sundays were in some respects trying days to him.

My father's habit was to read a long sermon to us all in the afternoon, and again after evening service another long sermon was read at prayer-time to the servants.

Our doors were open to sons of relations or friends; and cousins who were medical students, or clerks in merchants' houses, came in regularly to partake of our Sunday dinner and sermons.