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It was, as Mrs Archer s couple to give their first big dinner

The Newland Archers, since they had set up their household, had received a good deal of co three or four friends to dine, and May welco readiness of which her al affairs Her husband questioned whether, if left to herself, she would ever have asked any one to the house; but he had long given up trying to disengage her real self fro hadcouples in New York should do a good deal of infor, and a Welland ed to the tradition

But a big dinner, with a hired chef and two borrowed footilt-edged cards, was a different affair, and not to be lightly undertaken As Mrs Archer remarked, the Roman punch made all the difference; not in itself but by its nified either canvas-backs or terrapin, two soups, a hot and a cold sweet, full decolletage with short sleeves, and guests of a proportionate i occasion when a young pair launched their first invitations in the third person, and their suht-after Still, it was admittedly a triumph that the van der Luydens, at May's request, should have stayed over in order to be present at her farewell dinner for the Countess Olenska

The two -roo out the ed bristol, while Mrs Welland superintended the placing of the pal late from his office, found them still there Mrs Archer had turned her attention to the na the effect of bringing forward the large gilt sofa, so that another "corner" ht be created between the piano and the

May, they told hi the mound of Jacque table, and the placing of the Maillard bonbons in openwork silver baskets between the candelabra On the piano stood a large basket of orchids which Mr van der Luyden had had sent fro was, in short, as it should be on the approach of so considerable an event