Part 70

Bouillon. Bread. Crackers. Celery. Pickled Oysters. Chicken Salad. Peanut Sandwiches. Olives. Salted Almonds. Chocolate. Coffee. Ice Cream. Fancy Cakes. Fruit.

Serve the bouillon in cups, and be sure that it is very hot. Have a thin slice of lemon floating on the surface of each cup. Pass crackers (the Zephyr or Snowflake brands are best,) with this, and choice blanched celery. If the tables are set before the guests arrive, it is well to have a couple of short stalks of celery laid at each plate and spare that amount of waiting. Have each cup and saucer set in a plate, and take all three pieces off at once. Either tea or coffee cups may be used, and it is, of course, unnecessary to have them match.

The pickled oysters, with not too much liquor, may either be served on the same plate with the salad or separately. Glass or china dishes may hold the salad and oysters. Forks should be used with this course. The sandwiches must be neatly piled on fringed napkins on bread plates, and must be passed several times, and the olives and salted almonds may fill small glass dishes. The olives may be helped with a fork or spoon or with the fingers, the almonds may be served with spoons. The coffee and chocolate should be poured out at a side table, and sugar and cream passed with them to each person.

The ice cream should also be served off the table and passed in the plate or saucer from which it is to be eaten. The cakes should be prettily arranged in a cake dish with a doily under them. The fruit should be placed on a flat salver, as high piled dishes are apt to be top-heavy and difficult to pass. Oranges, bananas, grapes, the last cut into rather small bunches, make a pretty array. Each guest must be supplied with a fruit plate, doily, finger-bowl, fruit-knife and fork or spoon. Souvenirs are sometimes given, or attractive menu cards are used.

Five O'clock Teas, or "At Homes."

Some ladies make it a point to be "at home" almost every day at a certain hour, and serve tea or coffee in their drawing-rooms, accompanied by either wafers, maccaroons, fancy cakes, or small delicate sandwiches, and perhaps bouillon for masculine callers.

Such a lady who is bright and interesting, who gives a warm welcome, yet does not bind any one to a longer stay than the conventional ten minutes, is sure of drawing about her a delightful circle of acquaintances, men and women alike being pleased to drop in on their way home from the city, or from more pretentious gatherings.

This is the afternoon tea in its simplest form. In London afternoon tea is universal. If you are calling anywhere in the latter part of the afternoon, tea and thin bread and butter will be offered you as a matter of course, or if it has already been handed round, you will be asked if you have had your tea, and if not a fresh supply will be immediately brought.

If bread is thin enough, butter fresh, cake good, and tea and coffee perfection, you have provided all that is necessary. In warm weather ices or strawberries could be added. In England you will very seldom be given more than this at the best houses, and in Italy, where the afternoon receptions are the most agreeable entertainments imaginable, you will never be offered anything more than dainty little cakes, chocolate and tea. These slight refreshments are usually served in the simplest way. The hostess herself, or if the guests are numerous a white-capped bonne or two, pours out the tea and chocolate and the men of the party hand it to the ladies. Often the children of the house flit to and fro, carrying cups of tea or plates of cake, and everybody talks to everybody else. There will be the best pictures on the walls or the easels, often the best music from people the world knows well, and a reception thus simple in point of refreshment, but rich in the pleasures of art, is a memorable delight.

Still other ladies are at home on some one afternoon in each week, and announce that fact on their cards under their names as follows: Thursdays in February. Tea at Four O'clock. Or, if for a single occasion, it may read thus: Four O'clock Tea. Tuesday, February Fifth. Or, MRS. GEORGE GREEN, Five O'clock Tea. Tuesday, January Fifth. 47 Sussex Place. Or, MRS. GEORGE GREEN. Thursdays. Four to Seven. 47 Sussex Place. The year, or P.M., should not appear on the card.

These invitations require no answer, and no after calls, since really it is nothing more than a grand calling day. Those who cannot attend, call as soon as convenient, and those who come leave cards in the hall. Walking or carriage costumes are worn. Men wear morning dress. The hostess dons a handsome reception gown, never an evening dress. The young ladies who assist her are prettily clad in fabrics that suit the season, but which must not suggest ball toilet.

The simple refreshments served must be the very best of their kind. This style of afternoon tea is suitable for city or suburban life.

The Five O'clock Tea Table.

Beginning with the table itself, it may be a small oval, circular or hexagon shape. Any one of these is preferable to a square one. If the surface of the table is highly polished and it is preferred not to cover it entirely, a handsome square or round centerpiece doily, which is only a dinner centerpiece, is used, or a teacloth a yard square may prettily and wholly veil it.

For the actual furnishing of the table there are required a tea caddy, teapot, a hot water kettle, a cosy, a wafer or cracker dish, two or three pretty cups and saucers, cream jug and sugar bowl.

To measure the tea with a spoon is not considered quite so correct, and so redolent of the old-time flavor as to use the cup-cover of the caddy, "one fill to a brew." A glass mat may be provided to set the hot teapot upon, and the spoons are laid loose upon the table.

Cups should hold more than an actual thimbleful, though they need not hold a pint, and should bear some relation to the laws of gravitation in their poise upon the saucer. They should have a smooth rim. A fluted edge is a most uncomfortable finish for a drinking vessel. The wafer-basket may be silver, china or cut glass.

For the winter months many hostesses have introduced a variety on the menu of the five o'clock tea table. Tea is a doubtful beverage in many hands, and is wholly abjured by many women as injurious to the complexion, hence a big, egg-shaped urn, beneath which a tiny alcohol jet burns, is set up in the corner of the drawing-room. The urn is filled with chicken bouillon, served piping hot in small silver cups, and with an invigorating dash of sherry for those who prefer it so. With the bouillon are served platters of toasted water biscuit that have been sparingly buttered and lightly sprinkled with salt. Sometimes, in place of salt, a powdering of cheese is grated over the hot cracker, and for a relish at five o'clock nothing could be preferable to this light, warm repast. Men, it is well to remark, heartily advocate the change from insipid tea to the invigorating hot bouillon.

Pages.

The special innovation for the benefit of women are two drawing-room pages. These are small, well-trained little boys in buttons, livery or done up in stippers, white linen and turbans, who at intervals of fifteen minutes carry about among the callers large lacquer trays, on which are spread violets and rose leaves, crystallized and salted nuts with ginger. One is supposed to scoop up a few of the confections or nuts as the pages pass.

Receiving Friends.

Those friends invited to pour tea or chocolate also come at the hour named, and after removing their wraps seat themselves at their particular tables, or at their end of the one long table. It is their duty to dispense, besides the cups that cheer, words and smiles that cheer also to every one who comes, no matter whether they know them or not. Usually they can do much to make it lively for all in their immediate vicinity. If the afternoon is a long one and guests numerous several of the receiving party volunteer to relieve those at the urns, and they spend an hour pleasantly about the rooms and beside the hostess.

These are the kindly things expected of a woman who accepts an invitation "to receive," and when she has done them gracefully and prettily she is a social "sister of mercy."

If the number of guests is small the hostess herself frequently serves, with perhaps her daughter or some friend, to assist.

The Eatables.

The tea, with its pretty equipage, is placed on the table by her side; sometimes chocolate is provided, and occasionally a crystal pitcher of milk for any who may desire it. Some very thin sandwiches (rolled ones are better), a silver basket of sweet biscuit and one of mixed fancy cakes, form an all-sufficient menu. A small cluster of flowers in a slender vase and the table is complete.

Friends greet one another, drink a social cup of tea, chat a little, and that is all. Formal leave-taking is not expected.

Sliced lemon should be at hand for any who prefer the creamless, sugarless Russian tea with a slice of lemon floating on its amber tide.