"Oh, Tommy!" said the dear, tender-hearted one, "if they are not as well off as--" "Oh, that's not it. They can shell out as well as anybody; only they got on our club for nothing on condition of towing the boats, cleaning up, and that sort of thing." "At any rate, let us have them," said my mother. "All serene. Will you write the invitations? I say, mother, do you mind writing as well as you can? Our chaps are rather particular, you know, and I wouldn't like them to snuff up at you." My poor dear mother began, I think, to repent of her hospitable offer, but decided to go through with it now. So she got eight nice little sheets of scented invitation note, with envelopes to match, and wrote,-- "Mrs Jones requests the pleasure of Mr Alfred James Remington Trimble's company to tea in the Sanatorium parlour this evening at 6 p.m.;" and so on, in each case. My suggestion to add "R.S.V.P." and "Evening dress _de rigueur_" she thought it best to decline. But her kind leniency was thrown away, for within half an hour eight notes dropped in upon us, couched in the politest phraseology. Here was Langrish's, for instance:-- "Everard Langrish, Esquire, begs to thank Mrs Jones for asking him to tea at six sharp, when he will be very pleased to fall in with her wishes and be of service in any other way her better feelings may dictate." Langrish told me afterwards he cribbed this last sentence out of a story he had read in a weekly newspaper. He rather fancied it was "on the spot." Trimble's was less romantic:-- "Dear Madam,--I accept with thanks. Sarah gets rather outside sometimes, but we do what we can for him. Till then,-- "I am yours affectionately,-- "A.J.R. Trimble." Warminster's was, no doubt, meant to be impressive:--"The President of the Philosophical Conversation Club presents his compliments to Mrs Jones, and desires to inform her of his intention to wait upon her at the hour named in her letter. He trusts that Mrs Jones is in good health, and that her ailing child will be spared to her a little longer. Having several matters to attend to, the President of the Philosophical Conversation Club must now abruptly terminate, namely, Percy Algernon Warminster." The ending seemed to me decidedly weak compared with the rest. I will only give one more--that of Coxhead:-- "Dear Mrs Jones, I'll come to tea; At six o'clock you shall me see. I'm sorry Sarah's been laid up And drinks his physic from a cup. Unless unto the contrary I hear. My Eton suit I think I'll wear. And now 'farewell,' as great John Knox said. Yours truly, Samuel Wilberforce Coxhead." This effusion struck me as rather like cheek; but my mother seemed to like it.