To all you gentlemen who live at home at ease there are few things less troublesome than the arrangement of what is called a dinner-party. Some difficulty may possibly exist as to the guests. Lady Mary may be indisposed. It might not be quite right to ask Sir Harry to meet the Headleys. A stray embarrassment or two will arise to require a little thought or a little management The material details, however, give no care. There is a stereotyped mode of feeding one's friends, out of which it is not necessary, were it even possible, to issue. Your mock-turtle may have a little more or less the flavor of Madeira; your salmon be somewhat thicker in the shoulder; your sirloin be a shade more or less underdone; your side dishes a little more or less uneatable than your neighbor's; but, after all, from the caviare to the cheese, the whole thing follows an easy routine, and the dinner of No. 12 is the fac-simile of the dinner at No. 13; and the same silky voice that whispers “Sherry, sir?” has its echo along the whole street The same toned-down uniformity pervades the intellectual elements of the feast; all is quiet, jogtrot, and habitual; a gentle atmosphere of murmuring dulness is diffused around, very favorable to digestion, and rather disposing to sleep. How different are all these things in the case of the poor man, especially when he happens to be a reduced gentleman, whose memories of the past are struggling and warring with exigencies of the present and the very commonest necessities are matters of grave difficulty. Kellett was very anxious to impress his son's friend with a sense of his social standing and importance, and he told Bella “not to mind spending the whole week's allowance, just to show the soldier what Jack's family was.” A leg of mutton and a little of Kinnahan's port constituted, in his mind, a very high order of entertainment; and these were at once voted. Bella hoped that after the first outburst of this ostentatious fit he would fall back in perfect indifference about the whole matter; but far from it,--his waking thought in the morning was the dinner; and when she remarked to him at breakfast on the threatening aspect of the clouds, his reply was, “No matter, dear, if we have plenty of capers.” Even the unhappy possibility of Beecher's “dropping in” was subordinate to his wish to cut a figure on the occasion; and he pottered about from the dining-room to the kitchen, peeped into saucepans, and scrutinized covered dishes with a most persistent activity. Nor was Bella herself quite averse to all this. She saw in the distance--remotely it might be--the glimmering of a renewed interest about poor Jack. “The pleasure this little incident imparts,” thought she, “will spread its influence wider. He 'll talk of him too; he 'll be led on to let him mingle with our daily themes. Jack will be one of us once more after this;” and so she encouraged him to make of the occasion a little festival.