Word: mesta
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...Robert Low Bacon is the leading Republican hostess, a tall, tweedy woman with an air of conscious aristocracy who, in the nervous summer of 1948, was heiress presumptive to Mrs. Mesta's crown. At her small, select salon in the John Marshall house there is no foolishness about fun or songs. Each table is assigned a topic of conversation and their hostess sees that her guests stick...
...ring circus is the official circle. Here are the big governmental names which the successful hostess, of whatever circle, must catch. Most of them are ready to be caught: they hold offices of high prestige and medium salaries, which limit their own powers of entertaining. In, this ring, Perle Mesta is supreme...
...Perle Mesta's parties are neither so fancy nor so noisy as Mrs. Evalyn McLean's, so exclusive as Mrs. Truxtun Beale's, so smart as Mme. Bonnet's at the French embassy. Her menus are adequate but not sumptuous. At the Alben Barkley dinner last week, the 24 guests had turtle soup, filet of beef, peas, browned potatoes, aspic salad, and a rum-and-ice-cream dessert...
...Senator need worry at a Mesta party if he cannot quote Oscar Wilde, if he thinks Picasso is a ham & eggs painter, or is unable to pronounce the name of French Premier Queuille. In the new, hearty Mesta milieu, the lorgnette has abdicated to the guitar. Said a friend: "You go to a great many beautiful formal houses here where people barely speak above a whisper. You go to Perle's, and you know it's going...
...Perle Mesta is shaped to the mold of a Rubens model who has reached the age of a Helen Hokinson character. Her figure requires stern corseting; she carries a diet book in her purse, consults it before ordering. Except for her parties, she hates to spend money. Once she walked two blocks to Democratic headquarters because her hotel charged 12? for a phone call. People are always trying to wheedle money out of her; she does her own ordering for big affairs, and drives a good housewifely bargain. Says Perle, thrusting out her chin: "I'm stingy. That...