Be very chary of making any such remarks as “I am afraid I have stayed too long,” or “I must apologize for hurrying off,” or “I am afraid I have bored you to death talking so much.”  All such expressions are self-conscious and stupid.  If you really think you are staying too long or leaving too soon or talking too much—­don’t!

=AN INVALID’S VISIT BY PROXY=

It is not necessary that an invalid make any attempt to return the visits to her friends who are attentive enough to go often to see her.  But if a stranger calls on her—­particularly a stranger who may not know that she is always confined to the house, it is correct for a daughter or sister or even a friend to leave the invalid’s card for her and even to pay a visit should she find a hostess “at home.”  In this event the visitor by proxy lays her own card as well as that of the invalid on the tray proffered her.  Upon being announced to the hostess, she naturally explains that she is appearing in place of her mother (or whatever relation the invalid is to her) and that the invalid herself is unable to make any visits.

A lady never pays a party call on a gentleman.  But if the gentleman who has given a dinner has his mother (or sister) staying with him and if the mother (or sister) chaperoned the party, cards should of course be left upon her.

Having risen to go, go!  Don’t stand and keep your hostess standing while you say good-by, and make a last remark last half an hour!

Few Americans are so punctilious as to pay their dinner calls within twenty-four hours; but it is the height of correctness and good manners.

When a gentleman, whose wife is away, accepts some one’s hospitality, it is correct for his wife to pay the party call with (or for) him, since it is taken for granted that she would have been included had she been at home.

In other days a hostess thought it necessary to change quickly into a best dress if important company rang her door-bell.  A lady of fashion to-day receives her visitors at once in whatever dress she happens to be wearing, since not to keep them waiting is the greater courtesy.

CHAPTER XI

INVITATIONS, ACCEPTANCES AND REGRETS

=THE FORMAL INVITATION=

As an inheritance from the days when Mrs. Brown presented her compliments and begged that Mrs. Smith would do her the honor to take a dish of tea with her, we still—­notwithstanding the present flagrant disregard of old-fashioned convention—­send our formal invitations, acceptances and regrets, in the prescribed punctiliousness of the third person.

All formal invitations, whether they are to be engraved or to be written by hand (and their acceptances and regrets) are invariably in the third person, and good usage permits of no deviation from this form.

=WEDDING INVITATIONS=