A significant token of the advance of the average domestic caterer in knowledge of the structure of the human stomach and in aesthetic taste is the honorable position now given on all well-appointed tables to what are technically termed hors-d'aeuvres. We are moved to repudiation of the foreign phrase by the torture it suffers in the mouths of chef and confectioner, and by the desire to call a good thing by its right name.

Hors-d'aeuvres means, literally, out-of-course, or out-of-order. The misnomer is palpable when applied to the incentives to the business and pleasure of eating, and to the assistants in the work of digestion that are classed under the conventional heading. Each has place and course, and all are in order.

Especially is this true of the dainty devices that precede and enliven the regular progress of the social luncheon and "course dinner." The ingenuity of the professional cook and the lighter fancy of the accomplished housemother are taxed to swell the number of these and to contrive such as will play well their part. We see peculiar fitness in supplying a goodly assortment of such "aids and comforts" as a prelude to the more serious opus which is to follow.