"Yes, dear," I assented, "soup just now is so unattractive and—er—meat palls."
"But to-morrow we shan't feel like that," she declared triumphantly, "and one must look ahead, Archie. You just smoke quietly, dear, and I'll write out the menu. Then we'll talk it over. I shall make it out in French, dear. The simplest things sound almost epicurean in French. I shall buy three very pretty menu cards to-morrow—with little artistic drawings on them, one for each of us. And I dare say that Mr. Tamworth will like to take his home with him."
"But Anna won't understand French."
"I've thought of that," said Letitia, biting her pencil. "I shall make the list out in English for Anna, so that she can buy the things and serve them properly. Of course, she may know French—she certainly does if she has lived in good families—but I won't rely on it. Every cook really should be proficient in the gastronomic phrases that are so popular to-day."
"Strange, isn't it, Letitia, that English and American menus should always affect French?"
"No, dear," replied my wife, "not at all. We copy the Latin countries in all the arts. Why not in that of dining? Dining is an art, and not—as we regard it in England and America—a mere vulgar physiological process."
For ten minutes Letitia thought and wrote—and wrote and thought. She looked up at the ceiling for inspiration; she glanced at me, unseeingly, and when I made a face at her, never noticed it. She sat there, working, while I idly admired her and thought what an admirable little housewife she was. For such a blue-stocking, Letitia was doing wonders, it seemed to me.
At the end of the ten minutes she had finished and, bringing her work to my chair, she sat on the tiger-head at my knee and announced with much satisfaction that her efforts had been successful.
"Listen, Archie," she began, with her paper comfortably settled on her lap. "First of all, let me say that I have made out a very simple dinner. I hate ostentation and glare. My idea is to be dainty and unpretentious. We don't want Mr. Tamworth to think that we are living beyond our means, but we do want him to realize the fact that we know how to be refined and inexpensive at the same time."
"Certainly. You are quite right, Letitia. Go on."