it, a dining-room breakfast is
managed as follows:

=CONTINUOUS BREAKFAST DOWNSTAIRS=

The table is set with a place for all who said they were "coming down." At
one end is a coffee urn kept hot over a spirit lamp, milk is kept hot
under a "tea cosy" or in a double pitcher, made like a double boiler. On
the sideboard or on the table are two or three "hot water" dishes (with or
without spirit lamps underneath). In one is a cereal, in the other "hash"
or "creamed beef," sausage, or codfish cakes, or whatever the housekeeper
thinks of, that can stand for hours and still be edible! Fruit is on the
table and bread and butter and marmalade, and the cook is supposed to make
fresh tea and eggs and toast for each guest as he appears.

=PREPARING BREAKFAST TRAY=

The advantage of having one's guests choose breakfast up-stairs, is that
unless there is a separate breakfast room, a long delayed breakfast
prevents the dining-room from being put in order or the lunch table set.
Trays, on the other hand, stand "all set" in the pantry and interfere much
less with the dining-room work. The trays are either of the plain white
pantry variety or regular breakfast ones with folding legs. On each is put
a tray cloth. It may be plain linen hemstitched or scalloped, or it may be
much embroidered and have mosaic or filet lace.

Every bedroom has a set of breakfast china to match it. But it is far
better to send a complete set of blue china to a rose-colored room than a
rose set that has pieces missing. Nothing looks worse than odd crockery.
It is like unmatched paper and envelopes, or odd shoes, or a woman's skirt
and waist that do not meet in the back.

There is nothing unusual in a tray set, every china and department store
carries them, but only in "open" stock patterns can one buy extra dishes
or replace broken ones; a fact it is well to remember. There is a tall
coffee pot, hot milk pitcher, a cream pitcher and sugar bowl, a cup and
saucer, two plates, an egg cup and a covered dish. A cereal is usually
put in the covered dish, toast in a napkin on a plate, or eggs and bacon
in place of cereal. This with fruit is the most elaborate "tray" breakfast
ever provided. Most people who breakfast "in bed" take only coffee or tea,
an egg, toast and possibly fruit.

=THE COURTEOUS HOST=

Of those elaborate ceremonials between host and guest familiar to all
readers of the Bible and all travelers in the East, only a few faint
traces rema