Ladies and gentlemen should not proceed to the dining-room in silence, but should at once enter into conversation with each other. (See the work entitled "The Art of Conversing.")
On entering the dining-room the lady whom the host has taken in to dinner should seat herself at his right hand. On the Continent this custom is reversed, and it is etiquette for the lady to sit at the left hand of the gentleman by whom she is taken in to dinner.
The host should remain standing in his place, at the bottom of the table, until the guests have taken their seats, and should motion the various couples as they enter the dining-room to the places he wishes them to occupy at the table. This is the most usual method of placing the guests at the dinner-table. When the host does not indicate where they are to sit, they sit near to the host or hostess according to precedency.
The host and hostess should arrange beforehand the places they wish their guests to occupy at the dinner-table.
If a host did not indicate to the guests the various places he wished them to occupy, the result would probably be that husbands and wives would be seated side by side, or uncongenial people would sit together.
The custom of putting a card with the name of the guest on the table in the place allotted to each individual guest is frequently followed at large dinner-parties, and in some instances the name of each guest is printed on a menu and placed in front of each cover.
The host and the lady taken in to dinner by him should sit at the bottom of the table. He should sit in the centre at the bottom of the table and place the lady whom he has taken down at his right hand. The same rule applies to the hostess. She should sit in the centre at the top of the table, the gentleman by whom she has been taken in to dinner being placed at her left hand.
The lady second in rank should sit at the host's left hand.
Each lady should sit at the right hand of the gentleman by whom she is taken in to dinner.
It is solely a matter of inclination whether a lady and gentleman, who have gone in to dinner together, converse with each other only, or with their right-and left-hand neighbours also, but they usually find some topic of conversation in common, otherwise a dinner-party would prove but a succession of tête-à-tête.