It is often harder to be a good guest than to be a good hostess, and the test is whether one is invited a second and third time. Not all women realize what a subtle art that of being a good guest is. It requires a most sensi tive and sympathetic perception of undercurrents—things which the hostess does her best to hide out of regard for her guest's comfort, but the quiet appreciation of which by the guest is her surest guide to being welcome. For example, it invariably happens that a hostess desires at times to be freed from her guest's company for a short while to attend to some necessary domestic arrangements. Those who sense these things before they occur, and not after, are the ones who are welcomed again and again.
It is not necessary to be born with a natural instinct for these situations. Such sympathetic understanding may be easily cultivated. Nor is it essential to ask obvious questions. On the one hand they may exhibit boredom on the part of the guest, and on the other the hostess is scarcely likely to answer in any way except such as seems to her for the comfort of her guest. The customary hour of retiring in a house is a case 10 point. If we are accouiplished musicians, a household may delight in listening to our music without end, but few of us have so great talent that we can safely impose on the regular hours of our hostess.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.