If there is no smoking-room, coffee and cigars are brought to the table for the gentlemen after the ladies have gone into the drawing-room.

=PLACE CARDS=

The place cards are usually about an inch and a half high by two inches long, sometimes slightly larger.  People of old family have their crest embossed in plain white; occasionally an elderly hostess, following a lifelong custom, has her husband’s crest stamped in gold.  Nothing other than a crest must ever be engraved on a place card; and usually they are plain, even in the houses of old families.

Years ago “hand-painted” place cards are said to have been in fashion.  But excepting on such occasions as a Christmas or a birthday dinner, they are never seen in private houses to-day.

=MENU CARDS=

Small, standing porcelain slates, on which the menu is written, are seen on occasional dinner tables.  Most often there is only one which is placed in front of the host; but sometimes there is one between every two guests.

=SEATING THE TABLE=

As has already been observed, the most practical way to seat the table is to write the names on individual cards first, and then “place” them as though playing solitaire; the guest of honor on the host’s right, the second lady in rank on his left; the most distinguished or oldest gentleman on the right of the hostess, and the other guests filled in between.

=WHO IS THE GUEST OF HONOR?=

The guest of honor is the oldest lady present, or a stranger whom you wish for some reason to honor.  A bride at her first dinner in your house, after her return from her honeymoon, takes, if you choose to have her, precedence over older people.  Or if a younger woman has been long away she, in this instance of welcoming her home, takes precedence over her elders.  The guest of honor is always led in to dinner by the host and placed on his right, the second in importance sits on his left and is taken in to dinner by the gentleman on whose right she sits.  The hostess is always the last to go into the dining-room at a formal dinner.

=THE ENVELOPES FOR THE GENTLEMEN=

In an envelope addressed to each gentleman is put a card on which is written the name of the lady he is to take down to dinner.  This card just fits in the envelope, which is an inch or slightly less high and about two inches long.  When the envelopes are addressed and filled, they are arranged in two neat rows on a silver tray and put in the front hall.  The tray is presented to each gentleman just before he goes into the drawing-room, on his arrival.

=THE TABLE DIAGRAM=

A frame made of leather, round or rectangular, with small openings at regular intervals around the edge in which names written on cards can be slipped, shows the seating of the table at a glance.  In a frame holding twenty-four cards, twelve guests would be indicated by leaving every other card place blank, or for eight, only one in three is filled.  This diagram is shown to each gentleman upon his arrival, so that he can see who is coming for dinner and where he himself is placed.  At a dinner of ten or less this diagram is especially convenient as “envelopes” are used only at formal dinners of twelve and over.