ate might include all of one's visiting
list. The disadvantage of this plan, as an exclusive method of solving
the problem of social entertaining, was that slights were liable to
occur, and were sure to be bitterly felt and resented. Yet, what was a
hostess to do? To go back to the old-time crowded party, superadding
the increased luxury of modern entertaining, would be to re-establish
an inconvenient and expensive fashion. But some way must be devised to
bring one's friends together, in larger numbers, and with more prompt
and direct expression of hospitality and good fellowship than could be
conveyed by the slow and stately process of a series of dinners.

"Necessity is the mother of invention." Someone, probably having
reflected upon the easy social character of the English five o'clock
tea, solved the problem for the American hostess by instituting the
afternoon reception, which, somewhere between the hours of four and
six, summons a host of friends to cross one's threshold and meet
informally, chatting for a while over a sociable cup of tea, each group
giving place to others, none crowding, all at ease, every one the
recipient of a gracious welcome from the hostess, who by the
hospitality thus offered has tacitly placed each guest on her visiting
list for the season.

The afternoon reception is much the same affair, whether it be a tea
merely, or a _musicale_, or a literary occasion. If merely a
reception, conversation and the desultory chat of society, the drifting
about and the greeting of friends, and incidentally the cup of tea and
its dainty accessories, fill a half-hour or so very pleasantly; and
though inconsequent so far as any plan or motive is concerned, such
meeting and mingling may have all the desired effect as a promoter of
social pleasure and harmony.

When a _musicale_ is given at these afternoon hours, usually it is in
honor of some brilliant amateur, a pianist or singer, or, if the
program is miscellaneous, a gifted elocutionist. Or, it is an occasion
when some lion of the professional stage has been captured, either
socially or professionally, and the hostess gives to her less fortunate
friends an opportunity to see and hear at close range the celebrity
usually visible only through opera-glasses and beyond the foot-lights.
Or, some lady of well-known musical taste may be the patron of some
newly-arrived professor of music; and she invites her musical friends
to meet him, with the benevo