a proper time and place to do so, without paying others the ill
compliment of excluding them from your conversation.

If a foreigner be one of the guests at a small party, and does not
understand English sufficiently to follow what is said, good-breeding
demands that conversation shall be carried on in his own language. If
at a dinner-party, the same rule applies to those at his end of the
table.

If upon the entrance of a visitor you carry on the thread of a
previous conversation, you should briefly recapitulate to him what has
been said before he arrived.

Do not be _always_ witty, even though you should be so happily gifted
as to need the caution. To outshine others on every occasion is the
surest road to unpopularity.

Always look, but never stare, at those with whom you converse.

In order to meet the general needs of conversation in society, it is
necessary that a man should be well acquainted with the current news
and historical events of at least the last few years.

Never talk upon subjects of which you know nothing, unless it be for
the purpose of acquiring information. Many young men imagine that
because they frequent exhibitions and operas they are qualified judges
of art. No mistake is more egregious or universal.

Those who introduce anecdotes into their conversation are warned
that these should invariably be "short, witty, eloquent, new, and not
far-fetched."

Scandal is the least excusable of all conversational vulgarities.

In conversing with a man of rank, do not too frequently give him his
title. Only a servant interlards every sentence with "my Lord," or "my
Lady." It is, however, well to show that you remember his station by
now and then introducing some such phrase as--"I think I have already
mentioned to your Lordship"--or, "I believe your Grace was observing"... In
general, however, you should address a nobleman as you would any other
gentleman. The Prince of Wales himself is only addressed as "Sir," in
conversation, and the Queen as "Madam."

* * * * *

V.--NOTES OF INVITATION, &c.

Notes of invitation and acceptance are written in the third person
and the simplest style. The old-fashioned preliminary of "presenting
compliments" is discontinued by the most elegant letter-writers.

All notes of invitation are now issued in the name of the mistress of
the house only, as follows;--

"Mrs. Norman requests the honour of Sir George and Lady Thurlow's