“That’s bad,” remarked experienced Amy Jones.
“Yet she means well, and really does her best,” continued the young mistress, anxiously eager to defend her first domestic. “She can cook plain dishes fairly, and is interested in her work. If I tell her a thing, she never forgets.”
“That’s good; almost good enough to make up for the slowness. Can she wait?”
“Not properly. She can bring dishes and plates into the room and take them out again quickly, but that is almost the extent of her power; she could not hand round dishes or remain in the room during a dinner to be a credit or help. If we were to decide on dinner, don’t you think you would hire a waitress if you were me?”
“If you want my advice, dear, I should say, decidedly, do nothing of the kind. It would be an exhibition of effort which would involve pretence, and the slightest pretence would be a mistake. Whatever you do, don’t go beyond the resources of your own modest establishment. At present, all your friends know exactly what your position is; they will respect you if you make the best of it, but if you seem to wish to go beyond it they will begin to criticise, while the people you care for most will blame you.”
“Then you would give up all thought of dinner?”
“I don’t say so. Why should you not have a small dinner? Prepare everything yourself, altogether dispense with regular waiting, show Emma exactly what she has to do, and let her do her best. Supposing there should be a little contretemps, never mind; laugh at it, and your friends will laugh with you. They will only say that you are inexperienced. If all should go well, how pleased your husband will be! You are sure you don’t mind the trouble?”
“Mind the trouble! I like it. I think it is fun. I am only uneasy about the expense.”
“Well, dear, I should say that high tea, though less troublesome, is quite as expensive as dinner. We can easily ascertain the truth, however. Let us take paper and pencil, and draw up a statement of the cost of both. We will begin with the high tea. I suppose we are to take it for granted that you must have something extra? It would not do to have a thoroughly simple meal.”
“Oh, no. If we ask six people on such an occasion, we must make a sort of feast. Let me think. You put the items down as I decide on them. We might have a lobster salad, a couple of boiled fowls with egg sauce, a beefsteak and oyster pie, a strawberry cream, a jelly of some sort, a few tarts and cheesecakes, some fruit and fancy biscuits. Then, of course, tea and coffee and thin bread and butter, brown and white. That would do well enough. We could not well have less.”