Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/237

Rh fruit, took a pipe of tobacco in the New Hall, wished me joy of the house and desired our prayers."

At Andover he was equally ready for any of these diversions, though never intemperate in either meat or drink, but, like every magistrate, he kept open house, and enjoyed it more than some whose austerity was greater, and there are many hints that Mistress Bradstreet provided good cheer with a freedom born of her early training, and made stronger by her husband's tastes and wishes. The Andover dames patterned after her, and spent many of the long hours, in as close following of honored formulas as the new conditions allowed, laying then the foundation for that reputation still held by Andover housewives, and derided by one of her best known daughters, as "the cup-cake tendencies of the town."