prejudices with marvelous celerity when bidden to a Philadelphia
banquet.

It must, however, be confessed that this simplicity in the matter of
food which is characteristic of French entertainments is a great
encouragement to the givers of soirees in general. With us, to entertain
as other people do requires not only a lengthy purse, but a degree of
care and forethought in the preparation for any festivity which is very
wearing on body and mind alike. If Mrs. Quakercity wishes to invite
fifty people to her house, her soul is vexed within her and her body is
worn to a shadow with the magnitude of her preparations before the event
can take place. Not so with Madame la Marquise. The purse of Madame la
Marquise is but slender and her rooms are small. Nevertheless, she
shrinks not from bidding her friends come to see her. Either she has, in
pleasant sociable fashion, a regular reception-evening, once a week,
when she is "at home" to all her friends and acquaintances, or else she
organizes a little soiree twice or thrice during the season. Fifty or
sixty people, as many as her rooms will conveniently hold, are invited.
The mistress of the house provides something in the way of some good
amateur music, a charade or two acted in almost professional style, a
bit of declamation, or possibly the presence of some literary or
artistic lion. Everybody comes, and everybody tries to make himself or
herself as agreeable as possible. Nobody turns up his or her nose at the
cup of tea, the delicately cut sandwiches, the tiny cakes that are
handed round during the course of the evening. Nobody goes away
groaning, "Heavens! how hungry I am!" Madame la Marquise cannot afford
to give her friends _pate de foie gras_ and hothouse strawberries, and
they neither expect to have them nor blame her for not offering them. If
she were obliged to offer costly and delicate viands to her friends
whenever she invited them to her house, she would not be able to invite
them at all. They recognize the fact, and enjoy the hospitality which
she offers them without expecting anything more. But I should very much
like to see a reception at home where tea and sandwiches formed the sole
refreshments of the evening. The comments of the departing guests would
be more audible than flattering to the hostess, I am afraid.

The dinner-parties which form in Paris, as with us, a very prominent
feature of social life, are far less heavy in character than are the
same class