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TALES OF MY LANDLORD.
CHAPTER XII.
Their breakfast so warm to be sure they did eat,
A custom in travellers mighty discreet.
Prior.
The breakfast of Lady Margaret Bellenden no more resembled a modern dejeuné, than the great stone-hall of Tillietudlem could brook comparison with a modern drawing-room. No tea, no coffee, no variety of rolls, but solid and substantial viands—the priestly ham, the knightly sirloin, the noble baron of beef, the princely venison pasty; while silver flagons, saved with difficulty from the laws of the Covenanters, now mantled, some with ale, some with mead, and some with generous wine of various qualities and descriptions. The appetites of the guests were in correspondence to the magnificence and soli-
