When traveling great care should be taken as to introductions.
As a guest one should be ready and willing to meet any one whom his host or hostess may introduce, even though it be an enemy. The obligations of hospitality rest nowhere more heavily than in this matter. They demand that impartial courtesy should be shown to every one.
Calls
Calls must be made in person, rather than by card left by messenger or post, after an invitation to dinner, luncheon, supper, or similar function, and that within a week or, at farthest, two weeks of the date of the affair. One should also call in person within two weeks of any entertainment to which one has been asked, especially if one has attended.
One need repay formal calls, where no invitation to any social occasion has been received, only once a year. Even in this case, cards may be sent by mail. In the country it is usual to go in person, though one does not ask if the lady of the house is at home.
Calls should be made upon the "At Home" day, if one is engraved upon the card. If a person is ill, a near relative, or intimate friend, may leave a card for her at the house of the friend upon whom she wished to call.
Society holds young people who are free to attend parties and entertainments under stern obligation to pay their social calls. Young mothers, professional women, students, invalids, and semi-invalids are not expected to conform rigidly to the same rules. If a young woman can go to a party to amuse herself, she must call afterwards to acknowledge the courtesy of the invitation.
If a mother cannot call in person, her daughter or some one else may pay the necessary calls in her stead. Or she may invite the people whom she would otherwise call on, to an afternoon tea, which is more of a compliment than a call.
In calling at a house, should the door be opened by a member of the family, the caller does not present her card to the lady or gentleman, but steps in, asking for the person whom she wants to see. She may leave her card unobtrusively on the table when she goes out.
If a maid opens the door, the card is handed to her and received on a small tray. No well-trained maid ever extends her hand to receive a visiting card.