and
green wafers, I think. All that before it comes to the actual dinner at
all, and it's all so fussy!"

"Don't say one word!" said Mrs. Lloyd, sympathetically. "But it sounds
dee-licious!" she added consolingly, and little Mrs. Carew went
contentedly home to a hot and furious session in her kitchen; hours of
baking, boiling and frying, chopping and whipping and frosting,
creaming and seasoning, freezing and straining.

"I don't mind the work, if only everything goes right!" Mrs. Carew
would say gallantly to herself, and it must be said to her credit that
usually everything did "go right" at her house, although even the maids
in the kitchen, heroically attacking pyramids of sticky plates, were
not so tired as she was, when the dinner was well over.

But there was a certain stimulus in the mere thought of entertaining
Mrs.or seven
years after that again, two mahogany beds replaced the brass one, and
heavy mahogany bureaus with glass knobs had their day, with plain net
curtains and old-fashioned woven rugs. But all these were in the
guest-rooms now, and in her own bedroom Mrs. White had a complete set
of Circassian walnut, heavily carved, and ornamented with cunningly
inset panels of rattan. On the beds were covers of Oriental cottons,
and the window-curtains showed the same elementary designs in pinks and
blues.

"She dresses very prettily, I thought," observed Mr. White, apropos of
his wife's last remark.

"Dresses!" echoed his wife. "She dresses as your mother might!"

"Very pretty, very pretty!" said the man absently, over his book.

There was a silence. Then:

"That just shows how much men notice," Mrs. White confided to her
ivory-backed brush. "I believe they LIKE women