This absence of introductions makes conversation almost a lost art, and has made the ordinary ‘society’ nothing more or less than a bore and a trouble; while, as the ambition of most people is to know more folks than their neighbours and to go to more balls in one night than our foremothers used to see in their lifetimes, entertaining has become a farce and bids fair to die of its own immensity. Therefore, as these are undoubtedly hard times, and many people are not ‘entertaining’ at all because they cannot now afford to outdo their neighbours, let me beg any young beginner to start well and simply, confining herself to those friends she really wishes to see, and to giving parties that are not above her modest means, and that do not entail hiring extra help, who smash her crockery and cost a month’s wages for a few hours’ work, and agitate her so by their vagaries that she cannot talk sensibly to her neighbour; and let her furthermore ask people sometimes who cannot ask her again, but who can talk amusingly, and she will, I am sure, have much more out of her little dinners than most people do out of a whole London season’s fatigue and expense, both of which often ruin the health and the future of many a girl, who traces back to the severe ‘pleasures’ of town the lassitude and suffering that render the latter half of a woman’s life all too often hours of suffering and sorrow; for she has used up in the year or two of her girlhood all the strength and health that should have sustained her all through her days, and repents at leisure the stupidity and culpable weakness of the mother who allowed her to sacrifice the possessions for a lifetime in a few months. To enable our young housekeeper to manage so that her housekeeping bills will not overwhelm her after one of her little dinners, I have appended to each of the menus the exact cost of each, and I strongly advise any one to whom economy is an object to use New Zealand lamb or mutton. If properly warmed through and gently thawed close to the fire before putting it down to roast, the meat is simply delicious and as good as the best English; but it must be treated carefully, or else it will not be nice, but when properly thawed no one can tell it from English meat, and I think housekeepers would be a little astonished if they knew how often the ‘best English’ meat of the butcher’s book was really and truly the New Zealand meat they speak of with such horror. MENU NO. I. White Soup. Soles, Sauce Maître d’hôtel. Stuffed Pigeons. Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding. Wild Duck. Mince Pies. French Pancakes. Cauliflower au gratin. Dessert.