Removed now from the immediate and more intimate effects of the
Honourable George's digressions, I was privileged for days at a time
to devote my attention exclusively to my enterprise. It had thriven
from the beginning, and after a month I had so perfected the minor
details of management that everything was right as rain. In my
catering I continued to steer a middle course between the British
school of plain roast and boiled and a too often piffling French
complexity, seeking to retain the desirable features of each. My
luncheons for the tradesmen rather held to a cut from the joint with
vegetables and a suitable sweet, while in my dinners I relaxed a bit
into somewhat imaginative salads and entrees. For the tea-hour I
constantly strove to provide some appetizing novelty, often, I
confess, sacrificing nutrition to mere sightliness in view of my
almost exclusive feminine patronage, yet never carrying this to an
undignified extreme.
As a result of my sound judgment, dinner-giving in Red Gap began that
winter to be done almost entirely in my place. There might be small
informal affairs at home, but for dinners of any pretension the
hostesses of the North Side set came to me, relying almost quite
entirely upon my taste in the selection of the menu.
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