At the close of the dinner, the hostess gives the sign for retiring.

TABLE TOPICS.

     A meal—­what is it?  Just enough of food
     To renovate and well refresh the frame,
     So that with spirits lightened, and with strength renewed,
     We turn with willingness to work again.

    —­Sel.

    Do not bring disagreeable things to the table in your conversation
    any more than you would in your dishes.—­Sel.

    Courtesy in the mistress of the house consists in feeding
    conversation; never in usurping it.—­Mme. Swetchine

    Good humor and good health follow a good meal; and by a good meal we
    mean anything, however simple, well dressed in its way.—­Smiles.

    Unquiet meals make ill digestion.—­Shakespeare.

    Eat slowly and do not season your food with care.—­Sel.

To rise from the table able to eat a little more is a proverbially good rule for every one.  There is nothing more idiotic than forcing down a few mouthfuls, because they happen to remain on one’s plate after hunger is satisfied, and because they may be “wasted” if left.  It is the most serious waste to overtax the stomach with even half an ounce more than it can take care of.—­Sel.

I pray you, O excellent wife! cumber not yourself and me to get a curiously rich dinner for this man and woman who have just alighted at our gate....  These things, if they are desirous of them, they can get for a few shillings at any village inn; but rather let that stranger see, if he will, in your looks, accents, and behavior, your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, that which he cannot buy at any price in any city, and which he may travel miles and dine sparely and sleep hardly to behold.—­Emerson.

AFTER MEAL TIME

To no other department of domestic work perhaps is so little thought given or so little science applied as to the routine work of clearing the table and washing the dishes after mealtime.  Any way to accomplish the object, seems to be the motto in very many households.  But even for these prosaic tasks there is a best way, which, if employed, may make of an otherwise irksome service a really pleasurable one.

CLEARING THE TABLE.—­First of all, put back the chairs, and brush up the crumbs from the floor, then collect all untouched foods and store them away in clean dishes; next gather the silver, place it handles upward in pitchers or other deep dishes, and pour hot water over it.  For gathering the silver a compartment tray in which knives, forks, and spoons may be placed separately is important.  Many of the scratches and marks on their silver ware, which housekeepers deplore, come from the careless handling together of forks, knives, and spoons.  Now in a deep basin