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Fruit, Dish of Mixed

In the months of September and October the most fastidious fancy may be gratified through the facility afforded of collecting a variety of mixed fruits for a centre dish. The beauty even of fine fruit is enhanced when it is tastefully dished, and its form and colour are shown to advantage. One ornament for the centre of a dinner-table is a large gilt basket of some graceful shape, filled with every kind of fruit, interspersed with moss and fern-leaves. Apples, pears, peaches, pine-apples, and grapes would form a lovely combination for autumn fruits, the crevices filled up with scarlet geraniums and maidenhair fern; this for a centre-piece, surrounded by specimen glasses, with a rose or camellia in each, would form a most attractive coup d'oeil. There are so many ways, however, of displaying taste in dressing the centre of a table and of arranging fruit desserts, that it is best left to each individual fancy. Suffice it to say, that the dish should never be too full, and always garnished in some way, either with leaves or tiny sprays of flowers, or even embroidered paper, which can be bought for the purpose, and that all fruit intended for table should be carefully wiped with a cloth before being arranged on the dish.