The house footman is always put into a black livery with dull buttons and a black and white striped waistcoat.  Maids are not put into mourning with the exception of a lady’s maid or nurse who, through many years of service, has “become one of the family,” and who personally desires to wear mourning as though for a relative of her own.

=ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SYMPATHY=

In the case of a very prominent person where messages of condolence, many of them impersonal, mount into the thousands, the sending of engraved cards to strangers is proper, such as: 

        Mr. W. Ide Bonds
    wishes to gratefully acknowledge
    your kind expression of sympathy

or

      Senator and Mrs. Michigan
    wish to express their appreciation of

    [HW:  Miss Millicent Gildings]

    sympathy in their recent bereavement

Under no circumstances should such cards be sent to intimate friends, or to those who have sent flowers or written personal letters.

When some one with real sympathy in his heart has taken the trouble to select and send flowers, or has gone to the house and offered what service he might, or has in a spirit of genuine regard, written a personal letter, the receipt of words composed by a stationer and dispatched by a professional secretary is exactly as though his outstretched hand had been pushed aside.

A family in mourning is in retirement from all social activities.  There is no excuse on the score of their “having no time.”  Also no one expects a long letter, nor does any one look for an early reply.  A personal word on a visiting card is all any one asks for.  The envelope may be addressed by some one else.

It takes but a moment to write “Thank you,” or “Thank you for all sympathy,” or “Thank you for your kind offers and sympathy.”  Or, on a sheet of letter paper: 

    “Thank you, dear Mrs. Smith, for your beautiful flowers and your
    kind sympathy.”

Or: 

    “Your flowers were so beautiful!  Thank you for them and for your
    loving message.”

Or: 

    “Thank you for your sweet letter.  I know you meant it and I
    appreciate it.”

Many, many such notes can be written in a day.  If the list is overlong, or the one who received the flowers and messages is in reality so prostrated that she (or he) is unable to perform the task of writing, then some member of her immediate family can write for her: 

    “Mother (or father) is too ill to write and asks me to thank you
    for your beautiful flowers and kind message.”

Most people find a sad comfort as well as pain, in the reading and replying to letters and cards, but they should not sit at it too long; it is apt to increase rather than assuage their grief.  Therefore, no one expects more than a word—­but that word should be seemingly personal.