"Last week," said Letitia, "Mrs. Archer gave a reception. She hired two colored girls and one man for the occasion. There was a whole line of carriages in the street. It was a very nice affair. Mrs. Archer received her guests in a lovely blue silk dress. There were sandwiches tied up with ribbons, delicious _paté de foie gras_, _bouillon en tasse_, ices, champagne, and all the rest of it. There was music and altogether a most pleasing time. We all enjoyed it immensely. Two days later I dropped into Mrs. Archer's in the afternoon. I was dead tired--almost fainting for a cup of tea. I found her in a dirty cotton wrapper, dusting the pictures, and looking odious. I hinted for tea, but it was no good. She had no servant. At last, in desperation, I asked for a sip of water, and she ran and brought it for me--in a teacup!" "A cup of tea is certainly not too much to expect," I murmured meditatively. "The poorest artisan's wife, with seventeen children, and three rooms, could afford a cup of tea," declared Letitia, in pained tones; "but a cup of tea suggests home, you know. Hospitality suggests home. People here have lost the knack of it. These bedizened Jezebels of the intelligence offices have smashed the idea to pieces. One has to set a day for the visitor, and prepare for it two weeks beforehand." "It must be true," I declared. "People don't drop in to dinner nowadays." "They can't, because the host and the hostess drop out--to dinner." It seemed impossible to realize that not so very long ago both Letitia and I had scoffed at the mere idea of the existence of such a thing as the servant question. We had disdained to admit it. We had shut our eyes, and cook had knocked us in the face. We were now as gods knowing good and evil, with more of the latter than the former. Our skittish lives were embittered. The beginning of the end had set in, and the prelude was being played. Yet we frivoled with a cook or two more. Nobody could possibly accuse us of cowardice. Some may say that we were silly (and to these I simply remark: prove it); but cowardly, we were not. We distinctly warded off the time of surrender. We fought to the last finish, until our cook-mangled bodies gave out in sheer inability to cope with the enigma. We secured the aid of an ancient lady, who had first breathed the breath of life in Ireland--a country, by-the-by, that talks eloquently of home rule, and yet kindly sends all its cooks over here. However, Ireland's bitterest foes could wish it no worse fate than the sort of home rule that its own cook-ladies administer.