All letters should be headed with the address from which they were written, the day of the month, and the year; in this way:—­

            2, Ireland Avenue,
    Stratford-on-Avon, 9th October, 1886.

It is an irritating peculiarity with many people unaccustomed to business to be careless on this point.  Common sense suggests that they should mend their ways, and by putting the date and a full address on every letter, save their correspondents sometimes a good deal of trouble.

There is a short way, occasionally employed, of writing the date; for example, 4 / 7 / 86; meaning the 4th day of the 7th month (July, that is) of 1886.  This contraction—­which is improved by having the month put in Roman figures (as, 4 / vii. / 86)—­is handy now and again, but it does not strike one as looking particularly well at the head of a letter.

Put the name of the person to whom the letter is written at the beginning or the end.  Long ago, when envelopes were not in use, this did not matter so much, because the name of the person addressed could be seen by turning to the postal direction; but nowadays the envelope bearing the address is dropped into the waste-paper basket, and a second address is required to give the letter completeness, and enable third parties, perhaps, to understand it.

As to how to begin, whether “Sir” or “Madam,” or “Dear Sir” or “Dear Madam,” everyone may please herself, only taking note that the “Dear” should be omitted when any special reason exists for being distant and formal.  Not, however, that the word when used in a business letter has anything of an affectionate meaning.  It is just one of the drops of oil used to keep the machinery of human intercourse working smoothly.  Perhaps it originally crept in to soften the sharp effect of “Sir,” which sounds for all the world as if it would snap a correspondent’s head off.

“Dear Sir” and “Dear Sirs” are both right, but “Dear Gentlemen” is not, though there seems no reason against it.  If you begin “Sir” you must not end “I remain, dear sir.”  The beginning and the end should be all of a piece, and in both places the same form of address should be used.

In concluding a business letter you may say “yours respectfully,” or “your obedient servant,” or “yours truly,” or “yours faithfully,” according to the degree of intimacy existing between you and your correspondent.  But really there are no very nice distinctions to be observed between such phrases, and their use may safely be left to every girl’s common sense and discretion.

Take pains to sign your name always so that people can read it.  Some, out of pure affectation, conceal what they call themselves under a scribble which none can read—­“a hopeless puzzle of intemperate scratches.”  How is a stranger, getting a letter signed in this way, to know to whom to send a reply, unless, as is sometimes done, he cuts out the signature, pastes it on the envelope, and adds the address?  But illegible signatures, it must be confessed, are more often a man’s folly than a woman’s.