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: Cream of beet soup. Radishes, almonds, olives. Forequarter of lamb, stuffed; mint jelly; new potatoes; peas. Lettuce and cheese balls; wafers. Vanilla ice-cream and sherried cherries; small cakes. Coffee. "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."