begin playing at the stated time, and assign late comers to places as they come in.  Hats are kept on at an afternoon card-party.  The usual limit for playing is two hours.  The “progressive” fashion requires the providing of two prizes, the first prize and a consolation prize for the person having the lowest score.  If prizes are given at each table they should be duplicates.  These prizes are wrapped up in tissue paper and tied with ribbons, and are to be opened at once, displayed, and the hostess cordially thanked.  It is not good form to be ostentatiously generous in the matter of prizes, nor should guests show themselves too eager to win.

It is customary to engage card tables and chairs for such an entertainment.  The refreshments are served on these tables.  Punch is sometimes served while the game is in progress.

Very often the hostess invites some of her friends who do not play cards to come in for refreshments at half after four or five o’clock.

Refreshments should not be too elaborate for either afternoon or evening card-parties.  Sandwiches, coffee, and small cakes, or ices and cake, for the afternoon; salad of some kind with coffee, olives, and some sweet or fancy wafer, for evening.  Men enjoy an oyster stew served hot in the dining room.

[Manners and social customs 725]

Young girls’ parties.

Until a girl is formally launched in society, her parties are of the simplest and most informal kind.  She will invite a few friends to tea, or to a card-party, giving informal invitations and confining them to her school friends and most intimate acquaintances.  Games, music, and the like are the usual amusements.  Properly chaperoned, she may give a small theater party.

Birthday Party.—­The largest of her social functions will probably be her birthday party.  For this, her birthday flower will be chosen for decorations.  Her young friends may give her little presents.  Once in a season she may be invited to a small dance given for some schoolmate.  This she will attend, prettily and simply gowned, and properly chaperoned.  On no account will she go alone in a carriage, or with a young man alone.  If she is a well bred girl she will not pique herself in dancing every dance, nor “split the dances” into fragments to please those who wish to dance with her.  She will be careful not to romp nor laugh too loud; nor to permit herself to be held too closely in dancing, nor be served too often with punch.

“Stag” Dinners.

The woman who wishes to give her husband a birthday party or anniversary will not go amiss if she makes it a “stag dinner”—­that is, a dinner for men only.