TABLE TALK

wine at dessert, be not ashamed to produce only one kind of wine, and that one good. All your friends, whose good opinion is worth anything, will thank and respect you for this departure from the usual routine.

The water in the finger glasses is sometimes coloured with some harmless ingredient, such as cochineal. I am doubtful, however, about recommending this ; but I would always use water perfumed with a few drops of rose water or lavender water.

Coffee, bright as well decanted wine, is the proper conclusion of every dinner. It should be served in the dining-room, at any rate to the gentlemen, and liqueurs, one of which should be first-rate cognac, ought to be handed round with it.

The attendance or waiting at table is of the greatest importance. A servant thoroughly well up in dinner-drill is indeed a rara avis. He should combine the most imperturbable sangfroid with the greatest activity, and the only way to possess and keep up these qualities, is by carefully studied method. Too many servants, even if well up to their work, create a bustle by their very presence. For a dinner of ten people two are quite enough to be in the room ; a third one may be helping outside, but no farther than the dining-room door, and in fact it is better to have only one servant in the room if the second one is not well drilled, for he or she would only be in the way and create confusion. When there are two, each should attend to a certain part of the work arranged previously, or the guests should be apportioned between the two. If the servants know their work well, nobody ought ever to have occasion to ask for anything — the great aim of a good servant should be to watch with tender solicitude each guest allotted to him or to her, and to anticipate his wants or wishes.