clean and excellent of its kind; but she knew, supremely well, how large a part of life is played by palate and digestion. She could not give her guests digestion, but with great wisdom she spent a couple of hours over the consideration of how she would make their meals suitable to the state of mind that she hoped they would be in. Dinner on Friday, for instance, was intimately connected with the music. The French company was not going to act that day; there would be the band only, and arranging the music first, she had arranged a corresponding dinner. Friday, indeed, was to be the crucial day. On Thursday there was going to be a French play, which perhaps was almost too On Saturday there was going to be a third play (this she had not announced in her invitations, and it was a surprise), which was also very French. Friday, therefore, in order to enhance the memory of Thursday, and to anticipate Saturday, must be plainly exquisite. The band would play the "Suite in D," by Bach, after tea, and on that day—and on that day alone—she meant to go to church at seven in the evening, a short service to be over by half-past seven, so that there would be time to dress for dinner if one chose. Then, after the plain dinner, there would be more simple music. Mestra was coming down that night; he would play the Handel "Sonata in A," for the violin. Lucia, planning this day, almost had a fit, so she told Edgar, at the thought of the slovenly proceedings that in the general way characterized hostesses.
"Who wants to listen to Bach after a great fat dinner?" she said; "or who would want to look at 'Ami Intime' after cold beef, such as we shall have on Friday? To be any use, you must arrange the whole menu of the day. You must make your arrangements, not only for what your people eat, but for what they do."
"What they do depends on the weather," said he.
"Yes, darling, but I don't. I look further ahead than that. Do you suppose that I will give them a fat, stuffy dinner if it has been wet? Not at all. There are two menus for every day. If it has been hot and fine, and everybody has been out of doors, you will get menu A. If it has been wet and rainy, so that at the utmost we have walked under umbrellas or payed billiards and bridge, you will get menu B. Oh, I am not an ass!"
That was thoroughness again; Lucia certainly was not an ass. The audacity of the Brayton week, which appeared so unpremeditated, had to be solidly meditated over. She had to provide, and did, for fine weather and wet weather, in so far as she
