by only a few days.

"Lizzie and her mother, too," said the other woman. "I don't know
what's the matter with maids in these days," she went on, "they
simply can't do things, as my mother's maids used to, for example.
Now the four of them will be working all day over Thursday's dinner,
and, dear me! it's a simple enough dinner."

"Well, you have to serve so much with a dinner, nowadays," Mrs.
Carew said, in a mildly martyred tone. "Crackers and everything else
with oysters--I'm going to have cucumber sandwiches with the soup--"

"Delicious!" said Mrs. Lloyd.

"'Cucumbers, olives, salted nuts, currant jelly'", Mrs. Carew was
reading her list, "'ginger chutney, saltines, bar-le-duc, cream
cheese', those are for the salad, you know, 'dinner rolls, sandwich
bread, fancy cakes, Maraschino cherries, maple sugar,' that's to go
hot on the ice, I'm going to serve it in melons, and 'candy'--just
pink and green wafers, I think. All that before it comes to the
actual dinner at all, and it's all so fussy!"

"Don't say one word!" said Mrs. Lloyd, sympathetically. "But it
sounds dee-licious!" she added consolingly, and little Mrs. Carew
went contentedly home to a hot and furious session in her kitchen;
hours of baking, boiling and frying, chopping and whipping and
frosting, creaming and seasoning, freezing and straining.

"I don't mind the work, if only everything goes right!" Mrs. Carew
would say gallantly to herself, and it must be said to her credit