=WHEN THE HOSTESS SITS AT THE SIDE=

When the number of guests is a multiple of four, the host and hostess never sit opposite each other.  It would bring two ladies and two gentlemen together if they did.  At a table which seats two together at each end, the fact that the host is opposite a gentleman and the hostess opposite a lady is not noticeable; nor is it ever noticeable at a round table.  But at a narrow table which has room for only one at the end, the hostess invariably sits in the seat next to that which is properly her own, putting in her place a gentleman at the end.  The host usually keeps his seat rather than the hostess because the seat of honor is on his right; and in the etiquette governing dinners, the host and not the hostess is the more important personage!

When there are only four, they keep their own places, otherwise the host and hostess would sit next to each other.  At a dinner of eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty, etc., the host keeps his place, but at supper for eight or twelve, the hostess keeps her place and the host moves a place to the right or left because the hostess at supper pours coffee or chocolate.  And although the host keeps his seat at a formal dinner in honor of the lady he takes in, at a little dinner of eight, where there is no guest of honor, the host does not necessarily keep his seat at the expense of his wife unless he carves, in which case he must have the end place; just as at supper she has the end place in order to pour.

=SIDEWALK, HALL, AND DRESSING ROOMS=

One can be pretty sure on seeing a red velvet carpet spread down the steps of a house (or up! since there are so many sunken American basement entrances) that there are people for dinner.  The carpet is kept rolled, or turned under near the foot (or top) of the steps until a few minutes before the dinner hour when it is spread across the width of the pavement by the chauffeur or whoever is on duty on the sidewalk.  Very big or formal dinners often have an awning, especially at a house where there is much entertaining and which has an awning of its own; but at an ordinary house, for a dinner of twelve or so, the man on the pavement must, if it is raining, shelter each arriving guest under his coachman’s umbrella from carriage to door.  If it does not rain, he merely opens the doors of vehicles.  Checks are never given at dinners, no matter how big; every motor is called by address at the end of the evening.  The Worldly car is not shouted for as “Worldly!” but “xox Fifth Avenue!” The typical coachman of another day used to tell you “carriages are ordered for ten-fifteen.”  Carriages were nearly always ordered for that hour, though with slow and long dinners no one ever actually left until the horses had exercised for at least an hour!  But the chauffeur of to-day opens the door in silence—­unless there is to be a concert or amateur theatricals, when he, like the coachman says, “Motors are ordered for twelve o’clock,” or whatever hour he is told to say.