and
dispatch" is the motto of the breakfast table in most houses.

The _real_ breakfast of everyday life is the meal where we least expect
to meet guests--unless it be some one who is staying at the house. It is
a rare thing for a friend to "drop in" to breakfast, and to invite him to
do so is perhaps the rarest expression of hospitality, and will probably
remain so, while we remain a nation of brain and hand workers.

During the summer vacation, when we pause for a breathing spell, no more
charming hospitality can be offered than a dainty breakfast, especially
in the country. It may be the preliminary to an all-day house party, or
a picnic excursion; or the breakfast may be the goal of an early morning
drive by carriage or motor, and the hour may be early or late, just as
you please; for is not vacation a period of emancipation from the tyranny
of the clock? But let not the hour be too early, for tired people are
heavy sleepers; yet not too late either, lest the heat of the sun may
have become too suggestive of the approaching noon-tide; late enough for
weary eyelids to unclose willingly, early enough for the fresh dewy odor
still to cling to the vines on the porch.

The conventional breakfast in town is given very seldom as compared with
dinners and luncheons. It is peculiarly a holiday hospitality, reserved
until the men are at leisure; for breakfast without the man of the house
would be Hamlet with the prince left out.

There is another significant distinction: the guests are chosen from the
inner circle. When, on Christmas morning, Mr. and Mrs. A. entertain Mr.
and Mrs. B. and Mr. and Mrs. C. at breakfast, we infer at once their
intimate friendship and congenial companionship. One may lunch
impersonally with comparative strangers; one may dine formally touching
elbows with one's dearest foe but one does not of choice breakfast with
any one but a friend, or a friend of a friend--graciously accepted on
trust. Breakfast is the most intimate breaking of bread; not even the
festive elaboration can make the friendly breakfast seem like anything
but "playing at" formality. The service is essentially the same as it
usually is in that household, except that the children are not at the
table. The more homelike it is, the better; for home atmosphere is
revealed as at no other meal, and on no other occasion can a visitor be
made to feel so entirely "one of the family."

The guests remain but a short time after a