e herself, and
supplies the guest without asking with such articles as comb and brush or
clothes brush, or bathing suit and bath-robe.

The valet of the host performs the same service for men. In small
establishments where there is no lady's maid or valet, the housemaid is
always taught to unpack guests' belongings and to press and hook up
ladies' dresses, and gentlemen's clothes are sent to a tailor to be
pressed after each wearing.

In big houses, breakfast trays for women guests are usually carried to the
bedroom floor by the butler (some butlers delegate this service to a
footman) and are handed to the lady's maid who takes the tray into the
room. In small houses they are carried up by the waitress.

Trays for men visitors are rare, but when ordered are carried up and into
the room by the valet, or butler. If there are no men servants the
waitress has to carry up the tray.

When a guest rings for breakfast, the housemaid or the valet goes into the
room, opens the blinds, and in cold weather lights the fire, if there is
an open one in the room. Asking whether a hot, cool or cold bath is
preferred, he goes into the bathroom, spreads a bath mat on the floor, a
big bath towel over a chair, with the help of a thermometer draws the
bath, and sometimes lays out the visitor's clothes. As few people care for
more than one bath a day and many people prefer their bath before dinner
instead of before breakfast, this office is often performed at dinner
dressing time instead of in the morning.

=TIPS=

The "tip-roll" in a big house seems to us rather appalling, but compared
with the amounts given in a big English house, ours are mere pittances.
Pleasant to think that _something_ is less expensive in our country than
in Europe!

Fortunately in this country, when you dine in a friend's house you do not
"tip" the butler, nor do you tip a footman or parlor-maid who takes your
card to the mistress of the house, nor when you leave a country house do
you have to give more than five dollars to any one whatsoever. A lady for
a week-end stay gives two or three dollars to the lady's maid, if she went
without her own, and one or two dollars to every one who waited on her.
Intimate friends in a small house send tips to all the servants--perhaps
only a dollar apiece, but no one is forgotten. In a very big house this is
never done and only those are tipped who have served you. If you had your
maid with you, you always give her a tip (