On the other hand, girls who undertake to show their respect for their seniors sometimes overdo the matter.  No elderly person likes to be “fussed over.”  She doesn’t want someone continually thrusting a cushion behind her shoulders or insisting on providing a foot-stool.  The unwelcome service provokes a little resentment.  One must have an intuitive sense of what to do and when to do it, and tact enough to perform a trifling service without the appearance of saying “See me! how polite I am!” As young men should rise when an elderly woman enters the room, so a young girl may pay the same pretty deference to her mother or an acquaintance.  She should be careful not to take precedence of older women, not to interrupt them when speaking, and to render any small service unobtrusively.

[Manners and social customs 719]

The young girl’s social affairs.

There is no special code of etiquette for girls.  Why should they be trained in one code, only to discard it for another when they enter society?  Their etiquette is simply more informal.  Until they are “out,” they do not give formal invitations.  Their functions are chiefly luncheons, invitations being given by telephone or personal notes, and the menu more simple.  They may give theatre parties, but never without a chaperon.  They do not invite young men to call on them; that is their mother’s duty.  They do not send written invitations to young men; these are in the mother’s name.  Thus: 

   My Dear Mr. Smith: 
     My mother wishes me to say that it will give her much
   pleasure if you will spend Friday evening, March tenth, with us,
   quite informally.  We hope to see you at eight o’ clock. 
                                Yours sincerely,
                                                Mary Gray.

Such an invitation presupposes the presence of other guests.  If for cards, or music or games, mention may be made of the proposed entertainment.

A girl should not receive calls from young men without the presence of some member of the family, her mother by preference, at some time during the evening.  A young man should not feel that the girl he calls upon is not properly looked after by her parents.

The Girl and the Chaperon.—­Youth scorns the chaperon, regarding her as superfluous.  “I can look out for myself,” is the young girl’s motto.  Yet scandal has dimmed the fair name of many a girl through her disinclination to submit to proper chaperonage.  The chaperon is much more of a social necessity in the East than she is in the South and West.  If a girl proposes to “look ant for herself,” there are some things she must carefully abstain from doing.  She must not go to a restaurant with a young man alone; she must not travel about with him alone, even if she is engaged to him; she must not go “on excursions” unattended, nor go for a ride with a man and stop