My poor dear mother began, I think, to repent of her hospitable offer, but decided to go through with it now.
So she got eight nice little sheets of scented invitation note, with envelopes to match, and wrote,—
“Mrs Jones requests the pleasure of Mr Alfred James Remington Trimble’s company to tea in the Sanatorium parlour this evening at 6 p.m.;” and so on, in each case.
My suggestion to add “R.S.V.P.” and “Evening dress de rigueur” she thought it best to decline. But her kind leniency was thrown away, for within half an hour eight notes dropped in upon us, couched in the politest phraseology.
Here was Langrish’s, for instance:—
“Everard Langrish, Esquire, begs to thank Mrs Jones for asking him to tea at six sharp, when he will be very pleased to fall in with her wishes and be of service in any other way her better feelings may dictate.”
Langrish told me afterwards he cribbed this last sentence out of a story he had read in a weekly newspaper. He rather fancied it was “on the spot.”
Trimble’s was less romantic:—
“Dear Madam,—I accept with thanks. Sarah gets rather outside sometimes, but we do what we can for him. Till then,—
“I am yours affectionately,—