There is something graceful and kindly in
the little attention by which one guest silently
puts by his neighbour all that he may require.
I consider it a better opening to ultimate
friendship, if my unknown neighbour mutely
passes me the salt, or silently understands
that I like sugar to my soup, than if he had
been introduced by his full name and title,
and labelled with the one distinguishing
action or book of his life, after the manner of
some who are rather show-men than hosts.

But, to return to the subject of waiting. I
have always believed that the charm of those
little suppers, famous from time immemorial
as the delightful P.S. to operas, was that
there was no formal waiting, or over-careful
arrangement of the table; a certain sweet
neglect pervaded all, very compatible with
true elegance. The perfection of waiting is
named in the story of the White Cat, where,
if you remember, the hero prince is waited
upon by hands without bodies, as he sits at
table with the White Cat, and is served with
that delicate fricassee of mice. By hands
without bodies, I am very far from meaning
hands without heads. Some people prefer
female-waiters; foot-women as it were. I
have weighed both sides of the subject well
in my mind, before sitting down to write this
paper, and my verdict goes in favour of men;
for, all other things being equal, their superior
strength gives them the power of doing things
without effort, and consequently with less
noise than any woman. The quiet ease and
solemn soundless movement of some men-
servants is wonderful to watch. Last
summer, I was staying in a house served by
such list-shod, soft-spoken, velvet-handed
domestics. One day, the butler touched a
spoon with a fork;—the master of the
house looked at him as Jupiter may have
looked at Hebe, when she made that clumsy
step. "No noise, sir, if you please;
and we, as well as the servant, were hushed
into the solemn stillness of the room, and
were graced and genteel, if not merry and
sociable. Still, bursts and clashes, and
clatters at the side-table, do disturb conversation;
and I maintain that for avoiding
these, men-servants are better than women.
Women have to add an effort to the natural
exercise of what strength they possess before
they can lift heavy things—sirloins of beef,
saddles of mutton, and the like; and they
cannot calculate the additional force of such
an effort, so down comes the dish and the
mutton and all, with a sound and a splash
that surprises us even more than the Phillis,
who is neat handed only when she has to do
with things that require delicacy and lightness
of touch, not struggle of arm.

And, now I think of it, Mademoiselle de
Sablé must have taken the White Cat for her
model; there must evidently have been the
same noiseless ease and grace about the
movements of both; the same purring, happy,
inarticulate moments of satisfaction, when
surrounded by pleasant circumstances, must have
been uttered by both. My own mouth has
watered before now at the account of that
fricassee of mice prepared especially for the White
Cat; and M. Cousin alludes more than once
to Madame de Sablé's love for "friandises."
Madame de Sablé avoided the society of
literary women, and so I am sure did the
White Cat. Both had an instinctive sense of
what was comfortable; both loved home
with tenacious affection; and yet I am
mistaken if each had not their own little
private love of adventure—touches of the
gipsy.

The reason why I think Madame de Sablé
had this touch in her is because she knew
how "tenir un salon." You do not see
the connection between gipsyism and the art
of being a good hostess,—of receiving
pleasantly. I do; but I am not sure if I can
explain it. In the first place, gipsies must be
people of quick impulse and ready wit;
entering into fresh ideas, and new modes of
life with joyous ardour and energy, and
fertile in expedients for extricating themselves
from the various difficulties into which their
wandering life leads them. They must have
a lofty disregard for "convenances," and yet
a power of graceful adaptation. They
evidently have a vivid sense of the
picturesque, and a love of adventure, which, if it
does not show itself in action, must show
itself in sympathy with other's doings. Now,
which of these qualities would be out of
place in Madame de Sablé? From what we
read of the life of her contemporary, Madame
de Sevigné, we see that impromptu expedients
were necessary in those times, when the
thought of the morning made the pleasure of
the evening, and when people snatched
their enjoyments from hand to mouth, as it
were, while yet six-weeks-invitations were
not. Now, I have noticed that in some
parties where we were all precise and
sensible, ice-bound under some indefinable stiff
restraint, some little domestic contre-temps,
if frankly acknowledged by the hostess, has
suddenly unloosed tongues and hearts in a
supernatural manner;

"The upper air bursts into life,"

more especially if some unusual expedient
had to be resorted to, giving the whole the
flavour and zest of a pic-nic. Toasting bread
in a drawing-room, coaxing up a half-
extinguished fire by dint of brown sugar,
newspapers, and pretty good-for-nothing bellows,
turning a packing-case upside down for a seat
and covering in with a stray piece of velvet;
these are, I am afraid, the only things that
can call upon us for unexpected exertion,
now that all is arranged and re-arranged for
every party a month beforehand. But I have
lived in other times, and other places. I
have been in the very heart and depths of
Wales; within three miles of the house of the
high sheriff of the county, who was giving a