Then, during the dessert course, introduce what is called a Rose Shower.
This will be on the order of the literary salads that were so popular some time ago, but it is newer.
The idea is this: Cut from red tissue paper a couple of dozen little leaf shaped pieces to be crimped and creased and coaxed into representing rose petals. On each petal write a familiar quotation relating to the rose.
These leaves are to be pa.s.sed around the table, each guest taking one, and when done with it, pa.s.sing it on.
Prizes will be offered to the guests who are able to name the authors of the largest number of quotations.
Here are some of the verses:
That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.
--_Shakespeare_.
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
--_Shakespeare_.
The rose is fairest when "tis budding new; And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew, And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.
--_Scott_.
"Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone.
--_Moore_.
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
--_Moore_.
He wears the rose Of youth upon him.
--_Shakespeare_.
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.
--_Keats_.
She wore a wreath of roses, That night when first we met.
--_T. H. Bayley_.
The rose that all are praising Is not the rose for me.
--_T. H. Bayley_.
Loveliest of lovely things are they On earth that soonest pa.s.s away.
The rose that lives his little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
--_Bryant_.
Flowers of all hue and without thorn the rose.
--_Milton_.
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she.
--_Tennyson_.
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered.
--_Bible_.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow wille be dying.
--_Herrick_.
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.
--_Shakespeare_.
And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies.
--_Marlowe_.
These, of course, will be only about half enough, but the hostess can add others to them.
The prize for the best list of answers should suggest roses in some way.
CHRYSANTHEMUM BREAKFAST.
The time ten o"clock. Invitations, to be on a large sized visiting card, this wise:
Mrs. ---- At Home, Wednesday morning, November Seventh, Nineteen -- ---- ten o"clock, 340 ---- Street, Please reply.
Breakfast.
Enclose card in envelope to match.
Have three schemes of color for decorations--white chrysanthemums for parlor, pink for library, and yellow for dining-room.
Serve at small tables, with rich floral center pieces, and handsomely draped with Battenburg, or linen center piece and plate tumbler doylies.
Place cards, two and one-half inches by six in size, should be decorated with a spray of chrysanthemums on a shaded background in water colors, leaving sufficient blank for a name and outlining the top card with cut edges of leaves.
FIRST COURSE.