them, avoiding any special familiarity, and keep them at a distance
without hurting their feelings. Do not say to your host or hostess that
you do not like any of their friends.

LEAVE-TAKING.

Upon taking leave, express the pleasure you have experienced in your
visit. Upon returning home it is an act of courtesy to write and inform
your friends of your safe arrival, at the same time repeating your
thanks.

A host and hostess should do all they can to make the visit of a friend
agreeable; they should urge him to stay as long as it is consistent with
his own plans, and at the same time convenient to themselves. But when
the time for departure has been fully fixed upon, no obstacle should be
placed in the way of leave-taking. Help him in every possible way to
depart, at the same time giving him a cordial invitation to renew the
visit at some future period.

"Welcome the coming, speed the parting, guest,"

expresses the true spirit of hospitality.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.

Visiting and Calling Cards.

An authentic writer upon visiting cards says: "To the unrefined or
underbred, the visiting card is but a trifling and insignificant bit of
paper; but to the cultured disciple of social law, it conveys a subtle
and unmistakable intelligence. Its texture, style of engraving, and even
the hour of leaving it combine to place the stranger, whose name it
bears, in a pleasant or a disagreeable attitude, even before his
manners, conversation and face have been able to explain his social
position. The higher the civilization of a community, the more careful
it is to preserve the elegance of its social forms. It is quite as easy
to express a perfect breeding in the fashionable formalities of cards,
as by any other method, and perhaps, indeed, it is the safest herald of
an introduction for a stranger. Its texture should be fine, its
engraving a plain script, its size neither too small, so that its
recipients shall say to themselves, 'A whimsical person,' nor too large
to suggest ostentation. Refinement seldom touches extremes in
anything."

CALLING CARDS.

A card used in calling should have nothing upon it but the name of the
caller. A lady's card should not bear her place of residence; such cards
having, of late, been appropriated by the members of the demi-monde. The
street and number always look better upon the card of the husband than
upon that of the wife. When necessary, they can be add