If less pretentiousness is preferred for the occasion, the hostess may merely use a visiting-card. Below her name she writes:
Garden-Party, April third, four to
seven o’clock.
Still a third method of issuing the invitations is by means of a short note, written in the first person.
The formal engraved invitation demands a prompt reply, written in the third person. An acceptance might properly take this mode of expression:
Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Brewster
accept with pleasure
Mrs. Stratton’s kind invitation
for April third.
Thirty Abernethey Row
May twenty-fifth, 1919
A refusal might be in the following form:
Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Brewster
regret that a previous engagement
prevents their acceptance
of Mrs. Stratton’s kind invitation
for April third
Thirty Abernethey Row
May twenty-fifth, 1919
When the invitation is by means of the visiting-card, an answer is not obligatory. Yet, it is well to acknowledge this form of invitation, also, by sending a short note written in the first person, either accepting or refusing.
Of course, when the invitation itself takes the form of a note, the answer should follow the same style.