Chapter 33

XXXIII.

It was, as Mrs. Archer smilingly said to Mrs. Welland,
a great event for a young couple to give their first
big dinner.

The Newland Archers, since they had set up their
household, had received a good deal of company in an
informal way. Archer was fond of having three or four
friends to dine, and May welcomed them with the
beaming readiness of which her mother had set her the
example in conjugal affairs. Her husband questioned
whether, if left to herself, she would ever have asked
any one to the house; but he had long given up trying
to disengage her real self from the shape into which
tradition and training had moulded her. It was
expected that well-off young couples in New York should
do a good deal of informal entertaining, and a Welland
married to an Archer was doubly pledged to the
tradition.

But a big dinner, with a hired chef and two
borrowed footmen, with Roman punch, roses from
Henderson's, and menus on gilt-edged cards, was a different
affair, and not to be lightly undertaken. As Mrs. Archer
remarked, the Roman punch made all the difference;
not in itself but by its manifold implications--since it
signified either canvas-backs or terrapin, two soups, a
hot and a cold sweet, full decolletage with short sleeves,
and guests of a proportionate importance.

It was always an interesting occasion when a young
pair launched their first invitations in the third person,
and their summons was seldom refused even by the
seasoned and sought-after. Still, it was admittedly a
triumph that the van der Luydens, at May's request,
should have stayed over in order to be present at her
farewell dinner for the Countess Olenska.

The two mothers-in-law sat in May's drawing-room
on the afternoon of the great day, Mrs. Archer writing
out the menus on Tiffany's thickest gilt-edged bristol,
while Mrs. Welland superintended the placing of the
palms and standard lamps.

Archer, arriving late from his office, found them still
there. Mrs. Archer had turned her attention to the
name-cards for the table, and Mrs. Welland was
considering the effect of bringing forward the large gilt
sofa, so that another "corner" might be created
between the piano and the window.

May, they told him, was in the dining-room inspecting
the mound of Jacqueminot roses and maidenhair in
the centre of the long table, and the placing of the
Maillard bonbons in openwork silver baskets between
the candelabra. On the piano stood a large basket of
orchids which Mr. van der Luyden had had sent from
Skuytercliff. Everything was, in short, as it should be
on the approach of so considerable an event.

Mrs. Archer ran thoughtfully over the list,