Mr. Thorne proved as good as his word, for though he did not immediately follow up his warning that he would bring home unexpected company to dinner, he merely bided his time. One morning his wife said that, as she and Dolly would be out most of the day he need not expect a very good dinner that night, so that evening he gaily put in an appearance at six o'clock with two bachelor friends who had occasionally helped enliven the domestic circle on similar occasions.

Now, the dinner had been planned with an especial view to getting it on the table without a delay, as Mrs. Thorne could not be certain just what time she would be at home. The soup was ready to reheat. It was a plain purÉe, made with vegetables and water, flavored with a bone and plenty of seasoning, but there was not enough of it for five, unluckily. The meat was a Hamburg steak of moderate size, all ready to put in the dry frying-pan. For vegetables, a half-can of corn was already scalloped with crumbs, to be browned in the oven, and for potatoes a dishful of plain boiled ones was at hand, to be heated up in a white sauce. For dessert there was to be crackers, American cheese, and the usual black coffee, made in the coffee machine on the sideboard for convenience' sake.

When Dolly took in the situation and reviewed this menu, she shuddered. What a company dinner! Insufficient soup, scanty meat and corn, plain boiled potatoes, no salad and no dessert!

"Really, this time Dick has all but caught us," her sister whispered, as after receiving her guests with a cordial welcome she excused herself to put the dinner on. "Hurry, Dolly, and put more plates in the oven to heat, and get out the big platter and the vegetable dishes and put them in, too. Then lay two extra places and come out and help me.

"Now, here is the soup," she went on when her sister appeared. "There isn't half enough. You will have to get a can out of the emergency closet. Then the steak; isn't it fortunate that I had not put it over to cook? Now I can flatten it a little and make it larger, so it will cover more surface. I'll put vegetables all around it, and it will just fill that big platter and look exactly like a planked porter-house when I'm done with it. But the corn is hopeless; it is far too small an amount. Get some peas from the closet, Dolly, and drain and season them and make them hot. The potatoes won't do, either. Get some raw ones, and peel them and cut them in good-sized bits. And put on the kettle of fat to heat; I'll brown them in that."

After the meat was on the fire Mrs. Thorne made a salad by peeling and slicing in thick pieces three oranges she had bought for the next day's breakfast, because they happened to be cheap that day. She arranged these in the salad bowl and stirred up a French dressing to pour over them. She put the bowl on the sideboard and arranged the dessert by it, the crackers, a jar of fancy cheese from the closet in place of the American, and the coffee in the machine with small cups and saucers; she also set out the salad plates. She filled the tumblers, put on bread, and the bread and butter plates, with butter balls on them. Then she added a dish of spiced prunes to go with the meat course. As she was always certain that the dinner cloth was fresh and her fern dish filled and pretty, she had no changes to make in the table, and the two extra places had been laid by Dolly.

When she returned to the kitchen, the steak was ready to be turned and the potatoes prepared for the hot fat; it took only a moment to cook and drain them. The soup was put in the heated tureen, and with the hot soup plates carried into the dining-room. Then dinner was announced.

While the rest were seated at the table, Dolly served the soup from the sideboard. This plan was arranged beforehand. Whenever the question was discussed in the family which was the easiest and best plan of managing this first course without a maid, Mr. Thorne always held that the soup should be served at the table, and when they were alone this was done; but with guests there was always the possibility of an accident when men's unskilled hands passed filled soup plates from hand to hand. Sometimes in the past they had tried the plan of serving it before the guests came to the table, but too often the soup had been somewhat cooled, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the hostess. Generally there was the same compromise as to-night, and with guests it was passed from the sideboard.

After this course the cold plates under the soup plates, which had been put on when the table was laid, were removed with those above. With a maid they would have been left on the table and merely exchanged for hot ones by her, but after many experiments this had been decided on as the only feasible plan,—to take away the two together and put a pile of hot ones before the carver and have them passed from hand to hand. It was not as elegant as the other way, but it did away with the waiting on the table during the course. So Dolly brought in the large platter of steak and set it down before the carver. The meat was brown on the outside and pink within. A strip of suet representing a bone ran down the middle, and another outlined the edge, making it look like a porter-house cut. All around it were alternating piles of browned potatoes and green peas, with sprigs of parsley here and there, so that it was appetizing to look at and delicious to eat. With this arrangement there were no vegetables to pass, and the bread and spiced prunes were passed around without trouble.

The next course was the salad. After taking off meat plates and platter, Dolly set the bowl before her sister and put on the table a plate of thin bread crisps, rolled up slices of bread and butter, browned quickly in the oven while the plates were warming for dinner. After this third course Dolly removed everything and crumbed the table. Then came the crackers, and the fancy cheese which had taken the place of the plain American variety intended for family consumption only; and with them the coffee machine was put on, with the cups, saucers, and spoons and a bowl of cut sugar, and the black, hot, fragrant coffee brought the dinner successfully to a close.

"I can never catch you," said Mr. Thorne mournfully, when the guests had finally departed with complimentary remarks to their hostess. "You always spoil my nice little practical dinner-jokes by your confounded preparedness! And now I suppose I've got to pay the forfeit."

"What forfeit?" asked Dolly.

"Why, we have an arrangement that Dick can bring any friends home to dinner at any time, the number not to exceed two at once," explained her sister. "Then if there is dinner enough, and if it really is good enough for the occasion, he has to pay me for my extra trouble. Of course, if I ever fail, I'll have to pay up in my turn, but so far he has been caught every time. Dolly and I will consider, Dick, what the forfeit shall be. Matinee tickets, I rather think, this time."

"Well, I'll get them cheerfully, for that was really a good dinner, and the kind a man likes, which is another matter."

The next day Mrs. Thorne replaced the soup, cheese, and peas she had taken out of her emergency closet. She had also to buy extra meat for dinner as there was none left over for a second day's meal, but as the dinner had been a cheap one for five, she did not grudge the small amount expended. "But now we must economize in earnest this week," she said as she added up her accounts, "because next week I want to have a real little dinner-party. I must have several, in fact, to return the hospitality shown you, my dear. Luckily it is spring, now; remember that it is always cheaper to entertain in spring than at any other time in the year."

"It's a lot cheaper not to entertain at all," Dolly grumbled rebelliously. "Don't let's have any dinner-parties—they're such a bother!"

"On the contrary, they are no bother at all, but lots of fun when you have them as I do, simply and inexpensively. And you really must do some entertaining in your turn if you do not want to drop out of everything when you are married, and that would be a most foolish thing to do."

"Who waits on the table?" demanded Dolly.

"Oh, that's the trouble with the dinner-party, is it? Well, I hasten to relieve your mind—you don't! When I give a company dinner I have in a young girl whom I have trained. She does all the waiting, and stays and washes the dishes, and I pay her seventy-five cents for the evening. Sometimes, when I have a little luncheon I do my own waiting, and of course in a surprise-party dinner I have to also, but not when I give a regular invitation dinner. I wait till I have money enough in hand for the waitress as well as the food and flowers and all, and then I go ahead."

A few days later the party was arranged for. A young couple and their unmarried brother were asked, making a group of six to sit about the round table. This was the menu Mrs. Thorne wrote out:

"Doesn't that sound good?" she asked, surveying the paper with her head on one side.

"Now to make as many things as possible to-day, so we won't get too tired to-morrow. First, we will salt the almonds."

"Do let me do those all alone! I saw somebody do it once, and I know exactly how. You just take off the skins and fry them in olive oil."

"My dear, I hate to seem unappreciative or hurt your little feelings, but the fact is, that is a most abominable way to do them, though it's common enough. It makes them greasy and streaky, partly brown and partly white. This is the really-truly way to make them: first you put them in boiling water till the skins loosen, and then drop them in cold water; slip off the skins, and dry them and mix them with the half beaten white of an egg—that is, about half the whole white; then you sprinkle them with salt and put them on a tin in the oven and occasionally stir them. They will turn a lovely creamy brown and will be crisp and evenly colored, and you can keep those you do not use at one dinner and heat them up to freshen them when you need them, for a second dinner, just as you do crackers. We will do them that way to-day. Then besides that we will get the dining-room in order, polish the silver and glass, fill the salts, and look over the china and table linen, so that to-morrow there will not be much to do."

The next morning the marketing was done early, so that the things would come home in good season. At the grocery they bought the beets,—one bunch of old ones, not the young ones just in market; a can of small American peas; a head of lettuce; a square cream cheese and a round one half its size in order to have enough; a little American cheese; two lemons, and a pint of cream.

At the butcher's they ordered lamb. "Not what you call 'spring lamb,'" she explained, "but exactly what you have been selling all winter; that is still nice, and plenty young enough. Now cut off the neck and the trimmings, and take out the shoulder-blade and make a pocket for the stuffing to go in comfortably, and send me a bunch of mint with it all." While she waited for her change she told Dolly about this purchase. "Forequarter of lamb is really the cheapest roast there is. Sometimes even when we are all by ourselves I buy it and make ever so many meals of it. I get a big piece, as much as eight or nine pounds, because that is the cheapest way, and the butcher keeps it for me and lets me have it as I want it. The roast makes at least two dinners, and there is a lot left over still for croquettes and soufflÉs and such things. Then there are four chops for one or even two dinners more for two people—"

"'With a good filling soup to take off the edge of the appetite first,' otherwise the four chops would make only one dinner," interrupted Dolly, quoting freely.

"Exactly. And besides, there are the trimmings and odds and ends for meat pies and stews, so you see how far it goes."

"Really, I should think you and Dick would fairly bleat!"

"Well, perhaps we might if we deliberately sat down to lamb night after night, but we don't do anything half so foolish. We have things between, veal and beef and pork, and as the lamb is practically in cold storage at the butcher's, it can wait indefinitely, and when we do have it we live on what I used to think the old Jews wanted to live on in Canaan,—'the fat of the lamb!' But now's let's hurry home, for there's lots to do yet."

As soon as their things were taken off and kitchen dresses put on, the plain vanilla ice-cream was frozen and packed away to ripen. For the sauce which was to be put on each glass which it was served, a small can of preserved cherries was opened and drained; the juice was boiled down to a thick syrup with a small cup of sugar, and the cherries put back in it to cool, with a flavoring of sherry.

The salad was made next, the lettuce washed and rolled up in a clean towel and put where it was very cold, to crisp. They rolled balls of cream cheese, wetting them with a bit of oil to make them smooth, and adding salt and a dash of cayenne; as each one was made it was rolled in grated American cheese and then laid away. The French dressing was also made, and at the last moment was to be poured over the lettuce, and the golden, white-centred balls laid on it.

The beets for the soup were next chopped and boiled in a pint of water; as much milk was added, the whole seasoned with a slice of onion, salt and pepper, and then strained and slightly thickened. This made the prettiest of pink soups, and one which could be set away and be reheated at dinner time in three minutes. The mint jelly was also made: a cup of water was put with the juice of a lemon and heated; when hot, a small bunch of bruised mint was put in and simmered for two minutes; then this was strained and a level tablespoonful of gelatine, dissolved in half a cup of cold water, was put in with a tiny bit of green vegetable coloring, the whole strained through flannel and put into a pretty little mould. It would come out a lovely sparkling green, quite decorative enough to be put on the table, and delicious to eat with the lamb, Mrs. Thorne assured Dolly complacently.

The peas were turned out of the can, drained, seasoned and made ready to heat up quickly. The potatoes were boiled and cut up in a very little thick white sauce, and a spoonful of parsley was minced to be scattered over them, last of all.

After their luncheon the dinner table was laid. It had a white damask cloth, and a white, lace-edged centrepiece. There were four glass candlesticks with yellow candles and shades, and in the middle a bowl of the yellow jonquils, now in season and inexpensive. At each place was a pretty plate, which was to remain on till exchanged for a hot one later, and a small array of silver, with a tumbler and napkin. The latter hid a dinner roll, so no bread and butter was served at the dinner. The table was then finished except for the last touch; the small dishes of radishes and salted almonds, and a few white peppermints, were to be put on just before dinner, with the dish of mint jelly.

After the dinner was over Dolly confessed her amazement.

"I 'never did,' as the children say. I had no idea you could have so nice, so pretty a party with so little to 'do' with. Really, we never missed the fish, or the entrÉe, or the game or anything else. It was a lovely and delicious meal, wasn't it, Dick?"

"Modesty compels me to refrain from saying what I truly think, Dolly. Otherwise I should mention my conviction is that it was as good a dinner and as nice a party as you'd often find, and your sister is about as fine a cook and manager as they make 'em. But as I said to begin with, in my position of host my lips are sealed."

"So little trouble, too," Dolly went on, smiling at him. "I really thought you were crazy to ask the Osgoods, whom everybody is afraid to entertain because they have everything in the world, but our dinner was just as nice as though we had followed in their footsteps and had a table decorated with orchids, and whitebait and fancy ices and everything else to eat. Mary, permit me to say I consider you a genius!"

"Nothing of the sort. I am simply a woman, more or less sensible, I fondly trust, who knows that nowadays nobody cares for long, ten-course meals, and if what is set out is only good of its kind, that is all that matters. Then, too, when we are really living on a little and everybody knows it, either we cannot entertain at all, which means that we cannot accept invitations, or we must do it in a plain way, in keeping with the general style of our home life. Anything else would be absurd, snobbish and extravagant. And to prove that people like to come to simple dinner-parties like ours, I shall have two more right away."

"Three cheers," said her husband calmly.

The next morning the sisters added up their accounts and set down the dinner menu and what it cost in a little dinner-party book which was often used for reference by them. This is what the dinner proved to have cost:

"That is all, except the flowers, which were forty cents, and the cherries, which I made myself last summer and paid for then, so I did not have to put their cost in now, you see. The little bottle of olives cost ten cents; so did the radishes. The Jordan almonds were forty cents a pound, and I got half a pound and have some over for next time. With the flowers, that makes the dinner $3.15; say $3.25, to allow a liberal margin for little bits of butter, sugar, salt and so on used up in cooking, and $4, including the pay of the waitress. I call that a cheap party."

As soon as finances permitted and small economies had made the two sisters feel comparatively rich, they gave a second dinner. This time they found some pink tulips at a small florist's, and these they used in making a lovely table. They stuck them one by one into a very shallow dish filled with sand, the leaves put in and out also, and the edge of the dish concealed with moss; this gave exactly the effect of a little bed of growing flowers.

The menu was quite different from the other dinner:

The soup was made by chopping a quarter of a pound of almonds and simmering them in a pint of milk; then the other pint was put in with the seasoning, and it was slightly thickened, strained, and at last beaten up well with an egg-beater to make it foamy. The chicken was cut up and the best pieces dipped in batter and fried in deep fat; a rich cream gravy was passed with this. The corn fritters which were the necessary accompaniment of the dish were made of canned, grated corn.

The salad was very cheap at this time of year. Large California cherries were stoned, laid on lettuce, and a French dressing poured over all. The ice-cream was a nice vanilla, and on each glass was put one fine large strawberry. The next day the remains of the chicken appeared at dinner in the shape of croquettes, with a rice border, and the rest of the box of berries came on also. This materially reduced the expenses of that meal, and the difference went on to the cost of the party dinner, to help out. The account was like this:

Adding the little things as before, the flowers, nuts, olives, pay of the waitress, and a margin, brought this up to a trifle over four dollars.

"That is too much," said Mary soberly, as she set down the figures. "I mean to keep strictly within a four-dollar limit. So our third dinner, Dolly, must be less than these and even things."

This was the third dinner:

"That is a good, sensible dinner," said Dolly. "No frills, unless you count the mushrooms."

"It is the cost of the waitress that makes these dinners so expensive," said her sister. "It provokes me to have to put money on that, yet I will do it at a real dinner-party. But as for the rest, this ought not to be a costly affair."

The soup was made of very ordinary materials, but it looked and tasted well. The roast was crisply browned and juicy within, and the delicious stuffing and broiled mushrooms were substantial and good. The salad was lettuce covered with chopped almonds put on after the French dressing. The ices called for no cream and so were inexpensive. The figures showed this result:

"Ah, that's better," said Mary, when she saw the total. "Then the flowers were the same as before, only red instead of pink tulips; the waitress, too, and the margin—only $3.25. I feel relieved."

"Of course roast veal is not quite as good as Maryland chicken," said Dolly, "but the mushrooms made it seem quite elegant; broiled mushrooms are certainly food for the gods. It is quite a saving to have an ice instead of an ice-cream, isn't it? And Mary, did you see what a big, big piece of roast was left over?"

"That is one of the good things about veal, that there is so little waste. I am sure we can easily make two dinners out of it, and that will save ever so much. And when we can get ahead at all, Dolly, we must hurry and have our luncheons."