t do as much as Mrs. Smith or Mrs.
Parsons. If the idea of meeting together had some other focal point
than eating, I think there would be more social feeling. It might be a
musical reunion, where the various young people of a circle agreed to
furnish each a song or an instrumental performance. It might be an
impromptu charade party, bringing out something of that taste in
arrangement of costume, and capacity for dramatic effect, of which
there is more latent in society than we think. It might be the reading
of articles in prose and poetry furnished to a common paper or
portfolio, which would awaken an abundance of interest and speculation
on the authorship, or it might be dramatic readings and recitations.
Any or all of these pastimes might make an evening so entertaining
that a simple cup of tea and a plate of cake or biscuit would be all
the refreshment needed."

"We may with advantage steal a leaf now and then from some foreign
book," said I. "In France and Italy, families have their peculiar days
set apart for the reception of friends at their own houses. The whole
house is put upon a footing of hospitality and invitation, and the
whole mind is given to receiving the various friends. In the evening
the salon is filled. The guests, coming from week to week, for years,
become in time friends; the resort has the charm of a home circle;
there are certain faces that you are always sure to meet there. A lady
once said to me of a certain gentleman and lady whom she missed from
her circle, 'They have been at our house every Wednesday evening for
twenty years.' It seems to me that this frequency of meeting is the
great secret of agreeable society. One sees, in our American life,
abundance of people who are everything that is charming and
cultivated, but one never sees enough of them. One meets them at some
quiet reunion, passes a delightful hour, thinks how charming they are,
and wishes one could see more of them. But the pleasant meeting is
like the encounter of two ships in mid-ocean: away we sail, each on
his respective course, to see each other no more till the pleasant
remembrance has died away. Yet were there some quiet, home-like resort
where we might turn in to renew from time to time the pleasant
intercourse, to continue the last conversation, and to compare anew
our readings and our experiences, the pleasant hour of liking would
ripen into a warm friendship.

"But in order that this may be made possible and prac