The Etiquette of To-day

by Edith B. Ordway

When two ladies who are guest and hostess are driving together, the guest should enter first, taking the farther seat, facing the front of the carriage, so that it will not be necessary for her hostess to pass her. When a mother and daughter enter a carriage, the mother precedes, and the daughter sits by her side if no other lady is present. In case of two daughters, the elder sits by the side of the mother, and the younger sits opposite.

The fashionable hours for driving are from two-thirty to five in the winter, and from three to six-thirty in the summer.

Young women never ride horseback in cities or in public parks without an escort. In the country the rule is not so rigidly enforced. In case a groom is the escort, he rides slightly behind, keeping watch that he may be of service.

A riding-habit should be absolutely neat, simple, and inconspicuous. The hat should be plain, the hair compactly done, and the whole effect of the costume trim serviceableness and grace, rather than prettiness.

In mounting a horse a woman gathers up her habit in her left hand, and stands close to the horse with her right hand on the pommel of the saddle. The man who assists her stoops and places his right hand with the palm up at a convenient distance from the ground. The lady then puts her left foot into his hand, and springs up into the saddle with his assistance.

It is necessary, first, to have a firm seat; secondly, a skillful hand on the rein. One should sit in the middle of the saddle, in an easy, natural position, with the body not stiff but supple and responsive to the motion of the horse. The elbows should be well in to the side, in a line with the shoulders, and the hands should be relaxed and yet responsive to the slightest pull of the rein.

It is no longer considered wise and necessary for a woman to use a side saddle. In the freedom of a graceful divided skirt, she strides the saddle as do the men, and therefore has an equal chance with them to ride gracefully and safely,—a privilege which fashion long denied.

To keep to the right always is the only safe rule in the United States. In England and Canada the rule of keeping to the left is observed with the same rigidity.

In business life it is not good form to dine with your employer. This does not include a ban upon those business dinners, where there is a group of people, the majority of them men, with one or two unmarried business women of equal or superior business standing, who meet over the dinner table to talk of business problems. That occasion has its own etiquette, and one which the business man or woman readily fashions for himself or herself, and which follows the rules of business expediency rather than social life.

It is not necessary to recognize in society a strictly business acquaintance unless you wish to do so.