It was to be a thoroughly nice dinner and a good-sized one. The guests comprised the best people of the town, that is the most experienced socially, the most refined, the best educated. It was no common country village in which Virginia lived, but a college town where culture and literary taste flourished, so we were justified in supposing that everything would be done both by the hostess and her guests in the most conventional form.
The invitation was written in the recognized form which such invitations are supposed to follow. We used Virginia's correspondence cards with her monogram stamped in gold in one corner. The writing was carefully placed on the card with wide margins so as to give the best possible suggestion of care and thoughtful arrangement. Such things count for more than most persons suppose. The card read:
Miss Virginia Gale requests the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hoover's company at dinner on Wednesday evening May the eleventh at seven o'clock, Cosmos Club, Locust and Olive Streets.
