As the grand dinner was to come off the next day, our thoughts now turned in that direction.  The responsibility rested heavily on the heads of the chief actors, and they reported troubled dreams and unduly early rising.  Dear Belle Swift was up in season and her white soup stood serenely in a tin pan, on an upper shelf, before the town clock struck seven.  If it had not taken that position so early, it might have been incorporated with higher forms of life than that into which it eventually fell.  Another artist was also on the wing early, and in pursuit of a tin pan in which to hide her precious compound, she unwittingly seized this one, and the rich white soup rolled down her raven locks like the oil on Aaron’s beard, and enveloped her in a veil of filmy whiteness.  I heard the splash and the exclamation of surprise and entered the butler’s pantry just in time to see the heiress of the Smith estate standing like a statue, tin pan in hand, soup in her curls, her eyebrows and eyelashes,—­collar, cuffs, and morning dress saturated,—­and Belle, at a little distance, looking at her and the soup on the floor with surprise and disgust depicted on every feature.  The tableau was inexpressibly comical, and I could not help laughing outright; whereupon Belle turned on me, and, with indignant tones, said, “If you had been up since four o’clock making that soup you would not stand there like a laughing monkey, without the least feeling of pity!” Poor Lizzie was very sorry, and would have shed tears, but they could not penetrate that film of soup.  I tried to apologize, but could only laugh the more when I saw Belle crying and Lizzie standing as if hoping that the soup might be scraped off her and gathered from the floor and made to do duty on the occasion.

After breakfast, ladies and gentlemen, alike in white aprons, crowded into the dining room and kitchen, each to perform the allotted task.  George Biddle of Philadelphia and John B. Miller of Utica, in holiday spirits, were irrepressible—­everywhere at the same moment, helping or hindering as the case might be.  Dear Belle, having only partially recovered from the white-soup catastrophe, called Mr. Biddle to hold the ice-cream freezer while she poured in the luscious compound she had just prepared.  He held it up without resting it on anything, while Belle slowly poured in the cream.  As the freezer had no indentations round the top or rim to brace the thumbs and fingers, when it grew suddenly heavier his hands slipped and down went the whole thing, spattering poor Belle and spoiling a beautiful pair of gaiters in which, as she had very pretty feet, she took a laudable pride.  In another corner sat Wealthea Backus, grating some cocoanut.  While struggling in that operation, John Miller, feeling hilarious, was annoying her in divers ways; at length she drew the grater across his nose, gently, as she intended, but alas! she took the skin off, and John’s beauty, for the remainder of the festivities, was marred with a black patch on that prominent feature.  One can readily imagine the fun that must have transpired where so many amateur cooks were at work round one table, with all manner of culinary tools and ingredients.