"On the contrary, they are no bother at all, but lots of fun when you have them as I do, simply and inexpensively. And you really must do some entertaining in your turn if you do not want to drop out of everything when you are married, and that would be a most foolish thing to do."
"Who waits on the table?" demanded Dolly.
"Oh, that's the trouble with the dinner-party, is it? Well, I hasten to relieve your mind—you don't! When I give a company dinner I have in a young girl whom I have trained. She does all the waiting, and stays and washes the dishes, and I pay her seventy-five cents for the evening. Sometimes, when I have a little luncheon I do my own waiting, and of course in a surprise-party dinner I have to also, but not when I give a regular invitation dinner. I wait till I have money enough in hand for the waitress as well as the food and flowers and all, and then I go ahead."
A few days later the party was arranged for. A young couple and their unmarried brother were asked, making a group of six to sit about the round table. This was the menu Mrs. Thorne wrote out:
| Cream of beet soup. |
| Radishes, almonds, olives. |
| Forequarter of lamb, stuffed; mint jelly; new potatoes; peas. |
| Lettuce and cheese balls; wafers. |
| Vanilla ice-cream and sherried cherries; small cakes. |
| Coffee. |
"Doesn't that sound good?" she asked, surveying the paper with her head on one side.
"Now to make as many things as possible to-day, so we won't get too tired to-morrow. First, we will salt the almonds."
"Do let me do those all alone! I saw somebody do it once, and I know exactly how. You just take off the skins and fry them in olive oil."
"My dear, I hate to seem unappreciative or hurt your little feelings, but the fact is, that is a most abominable way to do them, though it's common enough. It makes them greasy and streaky, partly brown and partly white. This is the really-truly way to make them: first you put them in boiling water till the skins loosen, and then drop them in cold water; slip off the skins, and dry them and mix them with the half beaten white of an egg—that is, about half the whole white; then you sprinkle them with salt and put them on a tin in the oven and occasionally stir them. They will turn a lovely creamy brown and will be crisp and evenly colored, and you can keep those you do not use at one dinner and heat them up to freshen them when you need them, for a second dinner, just as you do crackers. We will do them that way to-day. Then besides that we will get the dining-room in order, polish the silver and glass, fill the salts, and look over the china and table linen, so that to-morrow there will not be much to do."