the most scrupulous
neatness and cleanliness. Gloves are never worn by servants in
first-rate English houses, but they carry a tiny napkin in their hands
which they place between their fingers and the plates. Nearly all
country gentlemen are hospitable, and it very rarely happens that
guests are not staying in the house. A county ball or some other such
gathering fills it from garret to cellar.

[Footnote A: Frenchmen say that the best English dinners are now the
best in the world, because they combine the finest French _entrees_
and _entremets_ with _pieces de resistance_ of unrivaled excellence.]

The best guest-rooms are always reserved for the married: bachelors
are stowed away comparatively "anywhere." In winter fires are always
lit in the bedrooms about five o'clock, so that they may be warm at
dressing-time; and shortly before the dressing-bell rings the servant
deputed to attend upon a guest who does not bring a valet with him
goes to his room, lays out his evening-toilette, puts shirt, socks,
etc. to air before the fire, places a capacious pitcher of boiling
water on the washing-stand, and having lit the candles, drawn the
easy-chair to the fire, just ready on provocation to burst into a
blaze, lights the wax candles on the dressing-table and withdraws.

In winter the guest is asked whether he likes a fire to get up by,
and in that event a housemaid enters early with as little noise as
possible and lights it. On rising in the morning you find all your
clothes carefully brushed and put in order, and every appliance for
ample ablutions at hand.

A guest gives the servant who attends him a tip of from a dollar and
a quarter to five dollars, according to the length of his stay. If he
shoots, a couple of sovereigns for a week's sport is a usual fee to a
keeper. Some people give absurdly large sums, but the habit of giving
them has long been on the decline. The keeper supplies powder and
shot, and sends in an account for them. Immense expense is involved
in these shooting establishments. The late Sir Richard Sutton, a
great celebrity in the sporting world, who had the finest shooting in
England, and therefore probably in the world, used to say that every
pheasant he killed cost him a guinea. On some estates the sale of the
game is in some degree a set-off to the cost of maintaining it, just
as the sale of the fruit decreases the cost of pineries, etc. Nothing
but the fact that the possession of land becomes more