As picnics, country dinners, and breakfasts were then Newport’s feature, they took the place of balls, all the dancing and much of the dining being done in the open air. I would here say that as every family took to these parties their butler, and carried out the wines and all the dishes, their cost in money was insignificant. We would pay twenty-five dollars for the farm or grove to which we went for the day. Twenty-five dollars for the country band, as much for the hire of silver, linen, crockery, etc., and ten dollars for a horse, wagon and man to take everything out, making the entire outlay in money on each occasion eighty-five to a hundred dollars. A picnic dinner and dance at my farm, furnishing everything myself, no outside contributions, for fifty or sixty people, would cost me then three hundred dollars, everything included. What a difference to the present time! I got up one of these country dances and luncheons summer before last at my farm, where, under a pretty grove of trees, I had built a dancing platform from which you can throw a biscuit into the beautiful waters of Narragansett Bay. Lending the farm to the party, every one bringing a dish, hiring the servants and music, cost us in money eight hundred and six dollars and eighty-four cents. There were 140 people present. The railroad running through the farm, the train stopped on the place itself within a few rods of the group of trees. Leaving Newport at 2 P.M., in six minutes we are on the place, and at a quarter of five the train returned to us, thus ridding ourselves of coachmen and grooms, finding them all at the railway station when we reached Newport on our return at 5 P.M., to take us for our usual afternoon drive.