THE EVENING RECEPTION
The cards for an evening reception may be issued in the same style. If not, they are in the form of a regular invitation, and in the third person, as:
“Mr. and Mrs. James Smith
Request the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs.
Brown’s company
On Wednesday evening, October the nineteenth,
From eight to eleven o’clock.
2 West Clark Street.”
If this formal invitation bears “R. s. v. p.” in one corner, it should be accepted in the same person in which it is written, thus:
“Mr. and Mrs. John Brown accept with pleasure Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s invitation for Wednesday evening, October the nineteenth.”
The reply to an invitation, whether formal or informal, should, to guard against misunderstanding, always explicitly repeat the date and the hour.
It is hardly to be supposed that any person who reads this book will be guilty of the outrageous solecism of signing his or her name to an invitation written in the third person. But such things have been done!
ABBREVIATIONS AND FIGURES