AN EAST-SIDE RAMBLE.
The New Yorkers, following the custom of Europe, often fence themselves about with a great deal of ceremony in social matters, even such small social matters as making calls.
Some ladies have days when they receive calls; others have no specified day, and then you take your chance of being turned from the door without seeing them, or if you find them, of finding them reluctant and preoccupied. A friend of mine says he has often felt as if he had been admitted through the error of the man or the maid who opened the door to him at such houses, and who returned, after carrying up his name, to say, with a frightened air, that the lady would be down in a moment.
But when there are days there is never any misgiving about letting you in. The door is whisked open before you have had time to ring, sometimes by a servant who has the effect of not belonging to the house, but hired for the afternoon. Then you leave your card on a platter of some sort in the hall to attest the fact of your visit, and at the simpler houses find your way into the drawing-room unannounced, though the English custom of shouting your name before you is very common and is always observed where there is any pretense to fashion. Certain ladies receive once a week throughout the season; others receive on some day each week of December or January or February, as the case may be. When there is this limit to a month, the reception insensibly takes on the character of an afternoon tea, and, in fact, it varies from that only in being a little less crowded. There is tea or chocolate or mild punch and a table spread with pastries and sweets, which hardly any one touches. A young lady dedicates herself to the service of each urn and offers you the beverage that flows from it. There is a great air of gayety, a very excited chatter of female voices, a constant flutter of greeting and leave-taking and a general sense of amiable emptiness and bewildered kindness when you come away. The genius of these little affairs is supposed to be informality, but at some houses where you enjoy such informalities you find two men in livery on the steps outside, a third opens the door for you, a fourth takes your hat and stick, a fifth receives your overcoat and a sixth catches at your name and miscalls it into the drawing room.