efreshment needed."

"We may with advantage steal a leaf now and then from some foreign
book," said I. "In France and Italy, families have their peculiar days
set apart for the reception of friends at their own houses. The whole
house is put upon a footing of hospitality and invitation, and the whole
mind is given to receiving the various friends. In the evening the
_salon_ is filled. The guests, coming from week to week, for years,
become in time friends; the resort has the charm of a home circle; there
are certain faces that you are always sure to meet there. A lady once
said to me of a certain gentleman and lady whom she missed from her
circle, 'They have been at our house every Wednesday evening for twenty
years.' It seems to me that this frequency of meeting is the great
secret of agreeable society. One sees, in our American life, abundance
of people who are everything that is charming and cultivated, but one
never sees enough of them. One meets them at some quiet reunion, passes
a delightful hour, thinks how charming they are, and wishes one could
see more of them. But the pleasant meeting is like the encounter of two
ships in mid-ocean: away we sail, each on his respective course, to see
each other no more till the pleasant remembrance has died away. Yet were
there some quiet, home-like resort where we might turn in to renew from
time to time the pleasant intercourse, to continue the last
conversation, and to compare anew our readings and our experiences, the
pleasant hour of liking would ripen into a warm friendship.

"But in order that this may be made possible and practicable, the utmost
simplicity of entertainment must prevail. In a French _salon_, all is,
to the last degree, informal. The _bouilloire_, the French teakettle, is
often tended by one of the gentlemen, who aids his fair neighbors in the
mysteries of tea-making. One nymph is always to be found at the table
dispensing tea and talk; and a basket of simple biscuit and cakes,
offered by another, is all the further repast. The teacups and
cake-basket are a real addition to the scene, because they cause a
little lively social bustle, a little chatter and motion,--always of
advantage in breaking up stiffness, and giving occasion for those
graceful, airy nothings that answer so good a purpose in facilitating
acquaintance.

"Nothing can be more charming than the description which Edmond About
gives, in his novel of 'Tolla,' of the reception evenings of a