f people that can be comfortably
entertained; and some ladies are compelled by the length of their
visiting-list to give two or three entertainments in order to include
all whom they wish to invite. When the invitations are sent out ten days
in advance, if answered within three days the hostess is enabled to
select from her other lists such of her friends as she would like to pay
the compliment of inviting twice, in case the number of regrets which
she receives will permit her to do so; but delaying the answers or
accepting with no intention of going puts it out of her power to send
other invitations.

An invitation once given cannot be recalled, even from the best motives,
without subjecting the one who recalls it to the charge of being either
ignorant or regardless of all conventional rules of politeness. Some
years ago a lady who had been invited with her husband to a musical
entertainment given at the house of an acquaintance for a mutual friend
of the inviter and the invited, received, after having accepted the
invitation, a note requesting her not to come, on the ground that she
had spoken slanderously of the lady for whom the soiree was to be given.
Entirely innocent of the charge, she demanded an explanation, which
resulted in completely exonerating her. The invitation was then
repeated, but of course, as the withdrawal of it had been intended as a
punishment, the rudeness was of too flagrant a character to overlook,
and all visiting between the parties ceased from that day. The rule
would not apply to a more recent case, where a lady gave a ball, and, in
endeavoring to avoid a crush and make it agreeable for her guests, left
out all young men under twenty-one years of age; but finding that she
had received wrong information concerning the age of one whom she had
invited, and that this one exception was much commented upon, causing
her to appear inconsistent, she wrote a note asking permission to recall
the invitation (having received no answer to it), and expressing her
regret that she should be made to appear rude where no rudeness was
intended. In this case the gentleman could, without compromising his
dignity, have sent a courteous reply, assuring the lady that he
perfectly understood her motives, and begging her not to give herself
any uneasiness upon his account in having felt compelled to withdraw the
invitation. By doing so he would have made the lady his firm friend, and
had she appreciated his politene