Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/121

 A blank space would be left in the engraved note for writing in the name "Miss Althea Marsh." Such a procedure seems, perhaps, finical or overparticular for an American, and it is seldom followed, though if we want to be punctiliously correct we should follow it.

In general in such notes most punctuation is omitted excepting the period following abbreviations, and no abbreviations should be used excepting the most conventional ones, like "Mr." and "Mrs."

The better the materials used in the writing of any note, or in an engraved note, the more favorable impression will be made, and this is especially true of the formal note. Tinted paper, unless it be gray, is in very questionable taste; white is always the safest; pink and lavender are, I think, most commonplace and vulgar. They suggest the child or the rustic. Double sheets of note paper of any adult conventional size or correspondence cards approximately three and one-half by five and one-half inches of thoroughly good quality are the most appropriate materials to be used in writing such notes, and refined people commonly use only black ink.