The evening times., 1895-08-19
PICKED UP DINNERS.
A Bride Gives Her Experience of
This Decidedly Trying Ordeal.

A Bride Gives Her Experience of
This Decidedly Trying Ordeal.
Every woman who has kept house has had
moro or less "picked-up' dinners.
There comes day when you are unusually
busy. The forenoon slips away before
you know it, and you resolve ON a picked-up
dinner.
What is there in the house? You make
mental inventory of the contents of your
larder. A plate OF cold roast, slice or
two OF corned beef. a dish Of cold baked
beans. some toast. a few cookies, good
supply OF bread and butter. Well, you
guess, with "a cup OF coffee and some pickles,
you can mako out. There is nobody hut
yourself and Charles, and surely there viii
be enough for only two.
And Charles has SO often told you that be
could live ON your smiles for week. The
dear boyl
or course you haven't been married long,
or you would not "take any stock" IN any
such nonsense as that; for no man, he he
ever 80 loving and loyal, but woull at din
ner time prefer some good roast beef and
vegetables, with pudding and other fix
ings, to all the female smiles In the world.
II was said that Lord Byron could not bear
to see woman eat, and that he had
great horror Of a person with healthy ap-
petite; but we Will venture to say that if
the author OF don Juan" had been without
his dinner for a couple of days, he would
have filled his stomach before he would
have basked in the smiles of beauty.
When your table Is Set 1T does look little
meagre, and you are glad that it rains
slightly, for there will not be likely to he
anybody in.
You lay the cold meat around, then, on the
plate, so as to make all the show possible,
and look upon the discovery of five dough-
Dnts in the jar as q gOdsend, and you add
a glass OF jelly, and sit down to wait for
Charles.
Directly you hear his step, aDd-oh, hor-
rOrsi There Is another step to be heard too
Perhaps 1t is the ice man. You seize on
the blessed idea, and peep through the
blinds. No, it is a stranger, tall and digni
fled. with tall hat and silk umbrella.
You grow cold all over Company to q
picked-up dinner!
You rush up back stairs to put on a
clean collar, and brush out your crinlps,
and take off your sweeping cap land all the
time you are thus engaged you can hear
Charles calling you: Sarah Jane! Sarah
Jane! where are your
Flushed and hot. you go down to be pre-
seDted to my particular friend and college
chum, Mr.. $685."
The very man that Charles has told you
SO much about, as being extremely fas-
tidious, and such lover of good living!
Mr.. $3.50 is bland and smiling. Delighted
to see Charles wife. Had expected to see
prodigy. Was not disappointed. The
half was never told, etc.
With many misgivings, you lead the way
to the dining room. Mr.. So-So's nose goes
up as he surveys the board. Charles face
grows black as thuDder-cloud. Mr.. $3.50
declines cold meat, he doesn't care for the
beans, he thinks he'll not take any dough-
nuts. He had late breakfast-not any OF
the Jelly, thank yoa.
And he goes away after dinner, without
asking you TO play, when before dinner it
was spoken Of, and he had expressed HIM
self charmed to be at last able to hear
the pla yiDg of one whose artistic talents
he has heard so much.
Now, is there any more mortifying situa
ton for a housekeeper to be placed in? 1
leave it for the ladies to ans weT. They all
know how it is, but the men do not, and
they can never be made to understand IL,
either. 1t is one of the things which the
masculine nature, despite its boasted astute-
ness and acuteness, can never be brought
TO comprehend.