"Don't put that cloth on! I'm keeping that for when we have a that ery!
inclined to ask if oneself isn't as good as a party!
Some housewives will positively hoard all their best linen, silver, and what not, against the tim they should be' having "company." Second best is good enough for the family, seemingly, though why one's family' shouldn't come before one's friends as far as the enjoyment of the home goes, is a thing T'vo never been able to fathom.
But there it is—a rather faded tablecloth, a shabby d'oyley and teacups not always innocent of chips, are used for the family, while on the sideboard glitters the "best"
in the drawers lurk the cloths and d'oyleys, the "best" pastry forks and tea nives—and on the family tea-table the cake dish must be content to cover the hole in the tablecloth, Second Best Won't Do It isn't fair—it really isn't! Second best is not good enough for the family!
T don't say that it is not just as well to keep some extra special things for use when visitors appear on the scene; it's only human nature to try to make the best of things on those occasions, but the family is also entitied to the pretty things the house contains—in fact, the family certainly has the first T Know of one house where the inmates bitterly complain that loose covers of a drab hue enshroud the drawing-room furniture from weekend to weekend, only being vemoved on the occasion of visits from "company.
"And it isn't as though," one of the family lamented, bitterly, "we s0 often have company! Visitors to our house are really very infrequent, but the drawing-room must remain heavily veiled against the contingency!"
Well, as I said before, and so again—the family ought to be cone sidered before the—mysteriong. brethren referred to as "company,"
The homes where the family considered are the happy homes; comfy chairs and pretty and dainty things are made the most of and are allowed to be a constant source of pleasure. They don't waste their sweetness on the desert air" ix days out of seven if one may put it in that way.
An Englishman's Home After all, it is very often the family, and' particularly the father of it, who provides the mens to make the home a pleasant place to live in, so. why, in common fair ness, should it have to put up, with second best?—Woman's Life"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.