for bread, one for a dish of olives, and so on, arranging them
evenly on the table. She put a dish of ferns on for a centrepiece and a
tray for tea for her mother at the end.

"If," said her aunt, "you wish a formal luncheon you lay a pretty
plate--a cold one--in front of each place, and exchange this for a hot
one when you pass the main dish. But when you are just laying a family
table you can put a hot plate down and merely pass the food as usual.
You need not put the dishes of food on the table--just bring them from
the sideboard. But remember at every meal never to let the food get
cold. The vegetables you can keep in covered dishes, of course, but
after you have passed everything so you can leave the room, carry the
meat out and put it in the oven until you want to pass it a second time.

"If you are to have salad, have this ready on the sideboard before
lunch, with its plates, and, if you are to have them, the crackers and
cheese also. You can take off the soiled plates after the meat course,
and lay down clean ones just as before, standing at each person's right,
taking off the soiled plate with the left hand and laying down the
clean one with the right, holding it above the other. Then pass the
salad, on the tray to each one's left, and next the salad dressing or
crackers or olives, or whatever goes with it. After the salad, crumb the
table, both at luncheon and supper, but if you use doilies do not take
the regular crumb-knife and tray, but carry a folded napkin in your
right hand and gently sweep off the crumbs into the tray; a knife might
scratch the table, and would certainly sound disagreeable against the
wood.

"The dessert, which may be fruit, should be ready before the meal on the
sideboard, with the plates and finger-bowls. When the last course before
it is taken off and the crumbs removed, there are no plates on the table
at all; it is the one time when it is cleared. So all you have to do is
to lay down the plates and finger-bowls with the fruit-knives and spoons
and pass the fruit. If you have cake, or preserves, or dessert of any
kind instead of fruit, you do just the same way; lay down the plates
and pass the things."

"But what do I do with the tray and teacups?" Margaret asked.

"Take them off when you do the last plates before the table is crumbed,"
said her aunt. "Take off the bread and butter plates, too. A good way to
do this is to take the large plate on the tray and carry the small one