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446 interests and duties for women, a hostess pays you a compliment to ask you at all. She puts aside her other affairs and makes special plans for entertaining you. To postpone a visit or break the engagement for trivial reasons is the height of rudeness.

A well-bred guest is pleased with whatever is done for her pleasure and enters cordially into all plans made for her. Where people entertain a great deal the hostess is usually engaged until luncheon, as she needs time to rest and attend to her duties. A guest should appear promptly at meals, disarrange none of the habits of the family, nor ask extra attention from the servants. She should be blind and deaf to anything disagreeable that happens, and should not gossip afterwards about the hostess' private affairs. On returning home a note should be written immediately, thanking the hostess for a pleasant visit, and later something should be done in return for it. City people are delighted to visit the country, but far too seldom does it occur to them to invite their country friends to visit them in the city. Unwillingness to return hospitality is just plain selfishness and people who are guilty of it are properly rebuked by not being invited a second time.


 * The courtesies of a small and trivial
 * character are the ones which strike deepest
 * to the grateful and appreciating heart.