Bouillon
Chicken or Lobster Salad Creamed Oysters
Nut Sandwiches Sardine Sandwiches
Cream Cheese Sandwiches
Olives or Pimolas Salted Nuts Bonbons
Ices Frappé Cakes
Tea CoffeeChocolate
The table is arranged for this as for the third tea mentioned, but there must be waiters in attendance, and they serve nearly everything. In most cases there is nothing done by the young women friends of the hostess who gather in the dining-room except entertain the guests and see that they have enough to eat. Once in a while, these young women may preside at the coffee-urn, or the chocolate, or teapot, but it is not a common occurrence.
The matter has been put into the hands of “the profession.”
It is all very nice, and an excellent way to clear the debit side of one’s social ledger, but the mind turns to the quiet afternoon tea-table with the hot tea under the cozy, the saucer of sliced lemon, the tiny flask of rum or the graceful cream jug, the sugar basin and plate of sandwiches, or bread and butter, with affection one never cherishes for the huge kettledrum.
SOME DAINTIES FOR AFTERNOON TEA
Tea cakes
Sift a quart of flour three times with two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and one of salt. Chop into this a tablespoonful of butter and one of cottolene or other fat.
(In all preparations requiring shortening, cottolene is preferable to lard.)
Mix in a bowl with a wooden spoon, adding about three cupfuls of milk, or enough to make a soft dough. Turn out upon your board and roll, with swift, light strokes into a sheet half an inch in thickness. Reverse a jelly-cake tin upon the sheet and cut with a sharp knife cakes just the size of the tin. With a spatula, transfer to a floured baking-pan and bake in a quick oven.