For this no colour is so appropriate as violet, and luckily this is the
month when the flower itself appears most plentifully in market. In
arranging the table it may be well to depart for once from the rule of
having all the linen in white, and use any violet-embroidered pieces you
happen to have. Such a centrepiece is especially pretty, under the real
flowers, and violet and white china, if you have it, will make an
attractive table. In the centre have a basket of rough green straw tied
with ribbons of violet, and filled with a mass of the flowers arranged
to look like one large, loose bunch, but really in a quantity of small
bunches which are to be given to the guests as they leave the table at
the close of the meal, unless you prefer to have a knot of the flowers
at each place, tied with narrow ribbons. This giving of individual
bunches of flowers at the beginning of the meal, although always a
graceful and pretty custom, is not seen just now as much as formerly.
If you use candles, have them of violet, with plain violet shades edged
with the flowers sewed to the paper or silk foundation; or else have
plain shades of heavy paper painted with wreaths of the flowers. Your
cards may match these, being squares of cardboard almost covered with a
wreath of violets, with a bowknot painted on it, and the name of the
guest written across the flowers. Your bonbon dishes may be filled with
candied violets and other violet-tinted sweets.