Table sherries should be decanted and put in the refrigerator one hour before dinner. Personally, as a table sherry I prefer to drink the new, light, delicate sherries, as they come from Spain, directly from the wood, before they are darkened by being kept in glass, and before all the water, that is always in them, has disappeared. This is the taste of the Spanish people themselves. They drink them from the wood. There is no need of having a large cellar of wine in this country, for we Americans are such Arabs, that we are never contented to stay quietly at home and enjoy our country, and our own perfect climate. No sooner have we built a charming residence, including a wine cellar, than we must needs dash off to Europe, to see what the Prince of Wales is doing, so that literally a New Yorker does not live in his New York residence, at most, more than four or five months in the year. In the other seven or eight, his servants have ample time to leisurely drink up the wine in his cellar, bottle by bottle; therefore, I advise against laying in any large supply of wine. Your wine merchant will always supply you with all wines excepting _old clarets_; these you must have a stock of; and, as servants do not take to claret, you are comparatively safe in hoarding up a good lot of it. Your old champagnes you can order from London, i.e. a winter’s supply, every year, for as they say it will not keep in this climate, you must do so to get it of any age. When sherry becomes old and has been kept some time in glass, they then drink it in Spain as a _liqueur_. If you cannot get hold of the best, the very best and finest old Madeira, give up that wine and take to sherry. I have seen sherry that could not be distinguished from Madeira by experts. Again, I have seen a superb sherry bring a hundred dollars a dozen. The most perfect sherry I ever drank was the “Forsyth sherry,” given to Vice-President Forsyth by the Queen of Spain, when he was the American Minister at her Court. I give during dinner a light, delicate, dry Montilla sherry. At dessert, with and after fruit, a fine Amontillado. DINNERS. CHAPTER XXII. _Assigning Guests at Dinner--The Boston fashion dying out--The approved Manner--Going in to Dinner--Time to be spent at table--Table Decoration--Too many flowers in bad taste--Simplicity the best style--Queen Victoria’s table--Her Dinner served at 8:15, but she eats her best meal at_ 2 P.M.--_Being late at Dinner a breach of good Manners--A Dinner acceptance a sacred Obligation--A Visite de digestion._ The Boston fashion adopted here for years, of one’s finding, on entering the house in which he was to dine, a small envelope on a silver salver in which was inclosed a card bearing on it the name of the lady assigned to him to take in to dinner, though still in use, is, however, going out of fashion. We are returning to the old habit of assigning the guests in the drawing-room.