Before the dessert is brought in, crumb the table, using a clean folded napkin, when you have cleared the cloth of salt, pepper, pickles, etc.
After the sweets comes the coffee. This is often sent to the guests into the drawing-room. In this case, the waitress covers a large tray with a white napkin, arranges the filled cups, smoking hot, upon it, sets the sugar in the middle and takes the whole into the room where the party is assembled.
Liqueur-glasses follow the coffee, and are also carried into drawing-room or library. In announcing to the mistress, in sitting-room or elsewhere, that a meal is ready, the waitress says, “Breakfast is on,” or “Luncheon is ready,” or “Dinner is served”—according to modern usage. One frightened unfortunate, on duty at a trial-dinner party, filled the hostess with confusion, the guests with secret amusement, by rattling off all three formulas in a breath.
It is impossible to write out rules that will meet every form and exigency of “entertaining.” The hostess who, having mastered the leading principles here given, trains her waitress into the daily practice of them, insisting that her family shall be served three times a day in the right order, and as punctiliously as if a state banquet were the business of the hour, need fear no embarrassing “situations,” no matter how large the number, nor how important the stations of her guests.
AMONG THE LINENS
Everything commonly classed under this head should be carefully aired before it is put away. Even when this duty has been conscientiously performed, real linen, made of pure flax, has marvelous properties for absorbing humidity. And humidity is the parent of that relentless foe to housewifely peace—mildew. Table-cloths, napkins and linen sheets that have been packed securely—as the owner supposed—in closets, drawers and chests, sometimes present to our horrified eyes a collection of small blotches, like dark freckles, and as ineradicable, and the folds, when opened, smell musty. The walls of the closet were not quite dry, or the chest has stood in a damp room, or the sideboard drawers have gathered must in an unaired basement dining-room.
It is a matter of common prudence to overhaul the contents of linen closets, and especially linen drawers and chests, once a month, if only to make sure that the contents are keeping well. At the same time be on the lookout for rents, broken threads and thin places.
Never buy cheap linen. If you can not afford the finest, you may secure that which is “all linen,” round-threaded and evenly woven. A little practice in the purchase of these treasures will initiate you into the art of judicious choosing. Having bought good “material,” take care of it. A break in a table-cloth or napkin, or towel, if neatly darned, will give you several more weeks of wear out of it—perhaps months. Hemstitched articles are liable to “give” first in the drawn work, and a stitch here in time, saves ninety.
You may keep napery in drawers, if more convenient than elsewhere, or upon shelves in a roomy sideboard. When at all practicable have a light, airy closet for bed linen. My own linen-room, built to order, has a southern window, unshuttered, through which the sun streams all the afternoon on fine days. Except in wet weather this window stands open for an hour of every day—not longer, lest dust should blow in.
Suffer another personal paragraph:—Not a sheet, towel or pillow-case is taken from this closet except by myself. Each pile has place and meaning. Each set of towels belongs to an especial apartment. Heavy bath towels; soft damask for the leastest baby’s use; big, rough huckaback for the boys’ lake baths, and the orderly heaps of different styles and textures, every one marked with embroidered letter or monogram designating chamber or owner—are known familiarly to but one person in the family.