charming small talk that is so necessary to the success of
these occasions. A wise hostess selects for this important position the
most brilliant, tactful woman within her circle of friends. The menu,
although by no means regulated on the English house-party plan, should
consist of trifles--sandwiches, wafers, fancy cakes, ices, and possibly
a salad. Foreigners understand the value of the simple feast which makes
frequent entertaining possible and a delight rather than a burden. In
America the menu, decorations, etc., grow more and more elaborate from
the ambition of each successive hostess to out-do her neighbor, until
the economy and beauty of simplicity is irretrievably lost in the
greater expense, fatigue and crush of a more pretentious function.

At the afternoon tea guests may come and go in street toilet, with or
without a carriage in accordance with preference and pocketbook. However
elegant the appointments and surroundings of this special function, the
progressive hostess must remember that her culture will be judged by the
quality of the beverage she serves. It is an age of luxury and refined
taste in palate, as in other things, and _tea_ is no longer TEA, unless
of a high grade and properly brewed. The woman who trusts her domestic
affairs to a housekeeper, or in the event of attending to them herself,
depends wholly for the excellence of an article upon the price she pays,
is a very mistaken one. Without informing herself she may very naturally
conclude that Russian or Caravan tea is cultivated, buds and blossoms in
the land of the Czar, until later on, when her ignorance meets a
downfall in some very embarrassing way.

The high-class, fancy teas of China are prepared by special manipulation
and for the use of wealthy families in the Celestial Empire and are
therefore never exported to other countries. Russian tea-merchants,
recognizing this, send shrewd buyers across the desert into China just
at the season to secure the choicest pickings for future consumption by
the nobility of their own country. Of late years the "Five O'Clocks"
and consequent craze for fine teas in America has tempted them to obtain
a small quantity above the requirements of their titled patrons in
Russia and this they export to the United States. If genuine, the name
Russia or Caravan tea signifies the choicest and most expensive grade
procurable the world over. It will be remembered that among the many
gifts bestowed when in this co