One was always surprised not to find a Christmas tree and crackers.

These entertainments, always splendidly done materially, and curiously erratic socially, were sometimes extremely amusing; at others, of course, a frost; it was rather a toss-up.
And the guests were, without exception, the most extraordinary mixture in London.

They included delightful people, absurd people, average people; people who were smart and people who were dowdy, some who were respectable and nothing else, some who were deplorable, others beautiful, and many merely dull.

There was never the slightest attempt at any sort of harmonising, or of suitability; there was a great deal of kindness to the hard-up, and a wild and extravagant delight in any novelty.

In fact, the Mitchells were everything except exclusive, and as they were not guided by any sort of rule, they really lived, in St John's Wood, superior to suburban or indeed any other restrictions.
They would ask the same guests to dinner time after time, six or seven times in succession.