Five or six rooms _en suite_ opening on the street, and as many more on a large court, formed the apartment, where everything betrayed the _artiste_ and the singer. The walls, hung with silk or tapestry, held a collection of original drawings and paintings, a fortune in themselves; the dozen portraits of our hostess in favorite roles were by men great in the art world; a couple of pianos covered with well-worn music and numberless photographs signed with names that would have made an autograph-fiend's mouth water. After a gracious, cooing welcome, more whispered than spoken, I was presented to the guests I did not know. Before this ceremony was well over, two maids in black, with white caps, opened a door into the dining- room and announced luncheon. As this is written on the theme that "people know too little how their neighbors live," I give the _menu_. It may amuse my readers and serve, perhaps, as a little object lesson to those at home who imagine that quantity and not quality is of importance. Our gracious hostess had earned a fortune in her profession (and I am told that two _chefs_ preside over her simple meals); so it was not a spirit of economy which dictated this simplicity. At first, _hors d'oeuvres_ were served,--all sorts of tempting little things,--very thin slices of ham, spiced sausages, olives and caviar, and eaten--not merely passed and refused. Then came the one hot dish of the meal. "One!" I think I hear my reader exclaim. Yes, my friend, but that one was a marvel in its way. Chicken _a l'espagnole_, boiled, and buried in rice and tomatoes cooked whole--a dish to be dreamed of and remembered in one's prayers and thanksgivings! After at least two helpings each to this _chef-d'oeuvre_, cold larded fillet and a meat _pate_ were served with the salad. Then a bit of cheese, a beaten cream of chocolate, fruit, and bon-bons. For a drink we had the white wine from which champagne is made (by a chemical process and the addition of many injurious ingredients); in other words, a pure _brut_ champagne with just a suggestion of sparkle at the bottom of your glass. All the party then migrated together into the smoking-room for cigarettes, coffee, and a tiny glass of _liqueur_. These details have been given at length, not only because the meal seemed to me, while I was eating it, to be worthy of whole columns of print, but because one of the besetting sins of our dear land is to serve a profusion of food no one wants and which the hostess would never have dreamed of ordering had she been alone.