f making an unwelcome visit.

The Unexpected Visit.--Nothing is worse form than "the surprise visit."
Generally you do surprise your hostess and very often most disagreeably. A
housekeeper does not enjoy an intrusion--for such it is--of that kind any
more than you would be pleased to have a chance caller rush unannounced
into your private rooms. Even among relatives and the most intimate
friends, there is nothing to justify the unexpected arrival. Nothing so
strikes terror to a woman's soul as the thud of trunks on the piazza and
the crunch of wheels on the gravel, meaning someone has "come to stay."

Such an arrival is a piece of presumption on the part of the visitor. She
assumes she will be welcome at any time she chooses to present herself.
This may be true; but at the same time there is an obligation of courtesy
which requires her to consult her friend's convenience. Instead, she
consults her own and utterly ignores that of her hostess, who is thus
forced into entertaining her.

[710 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]

The Inopportune Arrival.--Many awkward and sometimes amusing anecdotes are
told in connection with the inopportune visit. Thus not long ago the
newspapers chronicled the plight of a woman who undertook to surprise an
acquaintance from whom she had not heard for several years. She was driven
to their house and dismissed the carriage. A strange face met her at the
door, and she learned that her friend had removed to another city nearly a
twelvemonth before. "Served her right" will be everybody's verdict.

Suppose one arrives unexpectedly and finds the friend's house full of
other and invited company. Then, if ever, she ought to feel herself "a
rank outsider." If she is tactless enough not to give notice of her
intended arrival, she probably has not the good sense to depart as quickly
as possible. The man of the house may have to sleep on the parlor sofa, or
the children on the floor, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred the
whole family will wish her in Halifax.

Or she may arrive to find some member of the family ill, or house-cleaning
or repairing in progress, or the house in the hands of the decorators.
Indeed, so many unforeseen accidents may occur to make her visit an
unpleasant memory, both to herself and her hostess, that only the most
selfish and inconsiderate of women will so violate the social conventions
as to make "surprise visits."

Visits That Save Expense.--Something equally reprehensible is t