even politeness induce you to play for very high stakes.
Etiquette is the minor morality of life; but it never should be
allowed to outweigh the higher code of right and wrong.

Young ladies may decline to play at cards without being deemed guilty
of impoliteness.

No very young lady should appear at an evening party without an
escort.

In retiring from a crowded party it is unnecessary that you should
seek out the hostess for the purpose of bidding her a formal
good-night. By doing this you would, perhaps, remind others that it
was getting late, and cause the party to break up. If you meet the
lady of the house on your way to the drawing-room door, take your
leave of her as unobtrusively as possible, and slip away without
attracting the attention of her other guests.

[Footnote A: For a succinct guide to whist, loo, _vingt-et-un_,
speculation, &c., &c., &c., see Routledge's "Card-player," by G.F.
Pardon, price _sixpence_.]

* * * * *

IX.--THE DINNER-TABLE.

To be acquainted with every detail of the etiquette pertaining to
this subject is of the highest importance to every gentlewoman. Ease,
_savoir faire_, and good breeding are nowhere more indispensable than
at the dinner-table, and the absence of them is nowhere more apparent.
How to eat soup and what to do with a cherry-stone are weighty
considerations when taken as the index of social status; and it is not
too much to say, that a young woman who elected to take claret with
her fish, or ate peas with her knife, would justly risk the punishment
of being banished from good society. As this subject is one of the
most important of which we have to treat, we may be pardoned for
introducing an appropriate anecdote related by the French poet
Delille:--

Delille and Marmontel were dining together in the month of April,
1786, and the conversation happened to turn upon dinner-table customs.
Marmontel observed how many little things a well-bred man was obliged
to know, if he would avoid being ridiculous at the tables of his
friends.

"They are, indeed, innumerable," said Delille; "and the most annoying
fact of all is, that not all the wit and good sense in the world can
help one to divine them untaught. A little while ago, for instance,
the Abbe Cosson, who is Professor of Literature at the College
Mazarin, was describing to me a grand dinner to which he had been
invited at Versailles, and to which he had sat down in the company