In the big hall, with its dark-coloured marbles and handsome fireplace, I found the young couple waiting for me. They were before their time and were in holiday spirits, which reassured me, for no laughing girl is likely to slip suddenly into day dreams. After I had given my hat and coat to the dark-complexioned servitor in blue and gold Oriental dress, who looks like a very good-natured Othello, we waited for a while in the big cream and green drawing-room--a room so fresh in colour that it does not suggest an environment of London atmosphere, though it looks out on to Knightsbridge. At the quarter past eight we went into the big dining-room, and M. Binder, the _maître d'hôtel_, showed us to the table in a corner by a window which had been set for us. The Hyde Park Hotel dining-room is an exceedingly handsome hall of mahogany, with panels of gold and deep crimson brocade; its pillars are of deep red wood with gilt Corinthian capitals; a band plays in a gallery above the crystal service doors and the colours of the panels are echoed in carpet and curtains and upholstery. In its comfortable colouring the Hyde Park Hotel dining-room reminds me very much of what the Savoy dining-room used to be before its beautiful mahogany panelling was taken down and the colour of the walls and ceiling changed to cream. I soon found that I was not either to be silent or to have the conversation all to myself, for the young people laughed and chatted away, and I found myself comparing descriptions of the Curragh as it was in the seventies, when we used to lie in bed in the huts and watch the marking at the butts through the cracks in the walls, with the Curragh of to-day when the last of the Crimean wooden huts are about to disappear. The reading of the menu, however, was gone through with due solemnity, and the young lady knew that an important moment in her life was about to approach, for she was going to taste caviare for the first time. This was the menu of our dinner: Caviar Blinis. Crème d'Asperges. Sole à la H.P.H. Selle d'Agneau de lait poëlée. Haricots verts aux fines herbes. Bécassines Chasseur. Salade. Pêches Petit Duc. Comtesse Marie. Friandises. Dessert.