The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-10-31
A SIX O'CLOCK TEA.

A very pretty and effective entertain
ment came within my experience short
time ago, 1t was what is called six
O'Clock tea for young ladies, the guests
numbering about 75. After supper was
served, the hostess brought in on large
silver tray, what appeared to be heap
OF the freshest Of lettuce leaves, crinkled
and tender looking at the stem of each
was slip OF white paper, on which was
written familiar quotations from stand
ard authors, the attention of the COM
pany who had risen from their seats, and
were engaged in social converse, was at
tracted by the call of bell when the
hostess announced that she would fur
ther serve her guests by giving them a
Literary salad - each was to take leaf
and guess the author of the quotation
should she guess rightly she was to keep
the leaf and wear it in her corsage il
she could not guess, it must be returned
to the platter, and she might have the
privilege of trying again and as many
times as she liked. Those who guessed
correctly could also repeat the trial one
or two succeeded in securing large cor
sage bouquet of the leaves, while some
obtained none at all.
Card tables an cards were provided in
the meantime for those not interested in
the literary effort, and in another room
was provided a spelling game" for
those not liking cards, or relishing the
salad. This afforded much amusement,
for even well-known scholars and people
who never fail to spell correctly when
writing, often develop great weakness
when called on suddenly to spell word
verbally, and this weaknes IS is often most
manifest in the simplest and commonest
words.
In this game every one is to spell their
very best, and il you choose, prize can
be given to the best speller, and BOBBY
prize to the poorest. The words to be
spelled should be on a printed slip of
paper, with a definition added, and
placed in box on the table around
which your company is seated. The per-
son to start the game selects word,
without seeing it when selecting, pro-
nounces the word and gives the detini-
ton to the one next to him. II number
two spells the word correctly he takes
the card and draws another, and pro-
nounces it to the next to him if he
misses the word, the one pronouucing it
spells it and places it by itself. The last
speler draws the next card, and no one
is allowed to spell twice on a word.
Each participant should keep his own pile
of correctly spelled and mispelled words,
bsing careful not to mix them. The
prize goes of course to the best speller.
Like all games, to be interesting it
needs interested people, but having
these it affords very great amount of
amusement, for only too often where the
| 10 ,lo
word do we find the amusing mistake.
| As the supper was excellent and well
served, and the diversity of the enter
tainment met the various tastes of the
company, and had also the merit of be-
ing novel and new, the departing guests
expressed in most hearty manner their
appreciation of the effort, and their con-
gratulations on its success.
To make the leaves for the "literary
salad" get some tissue paper of light
green shade, as near the color of tender
lettuce leaves as possible cut IN shape
like the leaf leaving little strip at the
bottom for pasting on the quotation,
notch the edges and then fold over
iengthwise through the middle, slip over
a hair-pin on this fold and press closely
togther in the rounding part Of the pin,
then take off and if it is rightly done the
center of the leaf will be beautifully
crinkled /; write your quotation on
white SLIP of paper, number it and paste
on the little strip of tissue paper left be-
low the leaf. Have book with cor
responding number in it with the au-
thor's name, that you may be able to tell
when the quotations are rightly guessed.
Good Housekeeping.