handles her brush
unusually well, devised a book cover and leaflet combined that proved
a great success. She had the covers made in the regulation size of
pale sage chamois skin and added the decoration herself. She painted
each in the flower that the guest loved best, for her feminine
friends, and each in some convenient design for the men, and across
the corner was the name of each in quaint gold letters. She folded
heavy parchment paper in booklet form, and with her brush wrote in
silver bronze selections from the wit and wisdom of the ages. Then she
slipped the miniature books within the covers and left the brilliant
thoughts that they contained to start the conversational ball. Her
dinner was pronounced a great success, and it was remarked by many
that there was none of that awkward silence which so often precedes
the soup.

Table Etiquette.

[Illustration]

The minutiae of table etiquette offers to onlookers the best evidence
of good or ill-breeding, and in the graceful observance thereof is
displayed all the "difference between dining elegantly and merely
consuming food," for it is at the table that the ill-bred and the
well-bred man are most strongly contrasted.

How to eat soup, or partake of grapes, and what to do with a cherry
stone, though apparently trivial in themselves, are weighty matters
when taken as an index of social standing. And it is safe to say that
the young man who drank from his saucer, or the young woman who ate
peas with her knife, would court the risk of banishment from good
society.

In regard to the first essentials of table manners we are bound to
consider the laying of the table, the manner of being seated thereat,
the use of the napkin, the proper handling of those most invaluable
implements, knife, fork and spoon, together with a short dissertation
on those older implements, "Adam's knives and forks."

The Breakfast Table.

This first repast of the day should always be daintily and
appetizingly spread, and the etiquette there observed, as at all other
meals of the day, should be of a nature to render the observance on
more stately occasions second nature to the members of the family.
Children so trained will find little difficulty in after days as to
their table etiquette.

The table itself should be spread with clean linen, first overlaying
the surface with a sub-cloth of double canton flannel, felting, or a
white blanket that has seen its best days of usefulnes