=COUNTRY HOUSE STATIONERY:  FOR A BIG HOUSE=

In selecting paper for a country house we go back to the subject of suitability.  A big house in important grounds should have very plain, very dignified letter paper.  It may be white or tinted blue or gray.  The name of the place should be engraved, in the center usually, at the top of the first page.  It may be placed left, or right, as preferred.  Slanting across the upper corners or in a list at the upper left side, may be put as many addresses as necessary.  Many persons use a whole row of small devices in outline, the engine of a train and beside it Ardmoor, meaning that Ardmoor is the railroad station.  A telegraph pole, an envelope, a telephone instrument—­and beside each an address.  These devices are suitable for all places, whether they are great or tiny, that have different addresses for railroad, post-office, telephone telegraph.

[Illustration:  (train) Stirlington, New York]

[Illustration:  (telegraph pole and envelopes) Ringwood, New Jersey]

[Illustration:  (telephone) Sloatsburg, Seven-three-two]

For the Little House

On the other hand, farmhouses and little places in the country may have very bright-colored stamping, as well as gay-lined envelopes.  Places with easily illustrated names quite often have them pictured; the “Bird-cage,” for instance, may have a bright blue paper with a bird-cage in supposed red lacquer; the “Bandbox,” a fantastically decorated milliner’s box on oyster gray paper, the envelope lining of black and gray pin stripes, and the “Doll’s House” might use the outline of a doll’s house in grass green on green-bordered white paper, and white envelopes lined with grass green.  Each of these devices must be as small as the outline of a cherry pit and the paper of the smallest size that comes. (Envelopes 3-1/2 x 5 inches or paper 4 x 6 and envelopes the same size to hold paper without folding.)

[Illustration:  (three envelope corners with logos)]

It is foolish perhaps to give the description of such papers, for their fashion is but of the moment.  A jeweler from Paris has been responsible for their present vogue in New York, and his clientele is only among the young and smart.  Older and more conservative women (and, of course, all men) keep to the plain fashion of yesterday, which will just as surely be the fashion of to-morrow.

=MOURNING PAPER=

Persons who are in mourning use black-edged visiting cards, letter paper and envelopes.  The depth of black corresponds with the depth of mourning and the closeness of relation to the one who has gone, the width decreasing as one’s mourning lightens.  The width of black to use is a matter of personal taste and feeling.  A very heavy border (from 3/8 to 7/16 of an inch) announces the deepest retirement.

=DATING A LETTER=

Usually the date is put at the upper right hand of the first page of a letter, or at the end, and to the left of the signature, of a note.  It is far less confusing for one’s correspondent to read January 9, 1920, than 1-9-20.  Theoretically, one should write out the date in full:  the ninth of January, Nineteen hundred and twenty-one.  That, however, is the height of pedantry, and an unswallowable mouthful at the top of any page not a document.