THE WEEK-END PARTY
If she be so fortunate as to be invited to a house-party or a week-end party, she should accept or decline at once, that the hostess may know for how many people to provide rooms. For such an affair one should take handsome gowns, as a good deal of festivity and dress is customary among the jolly group thus brought together. A dinner or evening gown is essential, and if, as is customary, the house-party be given at a country-home, the visitor must have a short walking-skirt and walking-boots, as well as a carriage costume.
Once a member of a house-party, the rule is simple enough. Do as the others do, and enter with a will on all the entertainment provided by the host and hostess for the party.
THE QUESTION OF TIPS
If you make a visit of any length you must not fail, if you are conventional, to leave a little money for each servant who has, by her services in any capacity, contributed to your comfort. This will, of course, include the maid who has cared for the bedroom, and the waitress. By one of these servants send something to the cook, and a message of thanks for the good things which she has made and you have enjoyed. The laundress need not be inevitably remembered, unless she has done a little washing for you; still, when one considers the extra bed and table linen to be washed, it is as well to leave a half dollar for her also. The amount of such fees must be determined by the length of one’s purse; and must never be so large as to appear lavish and unnecessary. A dollar, if you can afford it and have made a visit of any length, will be sufficient for each maid. The coachman who drives you to the train must receive the same amount.
There is, one is glad to say, an occasional household in which the idea of tips is regarded as contrary to the spirit of true hospitality. In such homes the mistress herself sees that the servants receive extra pay for the extra work entailed by guests, and the hotel atmosphere suggested by tipping is fortunately done away with.
THE BREAD-AND-BUTTER NOTE
After the guest has returned to her own home, her duties toward her recent hosts are not at an end until she has written what is slangily known as “the bread-and-butter letter.” This is simply a note, telling of one’s safe arrival at one’s destination, and thanking the hostess for the pleasant visit one has had. A few lines are all that etiquette demands, but it requires these, and decrees that they be despatched at once. To neglect to write the letter demanded by those twin sisters, Conventionality and Courtesy, is a grave breach of the etiquette of the visitor.