In giving a dinner, have regard to the size and convenience of your rooms, and regulate the number of guests to suit, as a crowded table is always tiresome. Be sure to know that those invited are agreeable to each other. Strangers are sometimes invited as a compliment to other guests, or, as courtesy to themselves. All guests should be invited ten days before the dinner, and should accept or decline at once. They should be punctual to the hour named. Ladies usually appear in full dress; gentlemen in the usual conventional black, with white vests.

Guests should find their places quietly as possible. Cards at each plate will be an assistance.

Guests remain standing until the hostess seats herself.

A gentleman escorting a lady into the dining-room should offer her his left arm, and, on passing through the door, pass first himself and let the lady follow without dropping his arm.

The knives and forks are to be used as follows: The small, spoon-shaped fork is used for raw oysters; the next smallest fork for fish; a silver knife is usually supplied for fish also; steel-bladed knives, with elegant handles, are most usually provided for meats.

Soup should be eaten from the side of the spoon, noiselessly. To be very exquisite, dip up the soup with the side of the spoon farthest from you and move it toward the farther side of the plate in lifting it toward the lips. This will give time for a drop to fall into the plate from the outside.

Napkins should be partly unfolded and laid carelessly on the left knee and used to wipe the lips lightly.

Courses wherein knives and forks are both used, the knife should be held in the right hand and the fork in the left, and they should not be exchanged. Keep the fork in the left hand and convey all the food to the mouth with that hand.

Courses where no knife is required, such as salads, croquettes, sweet-breads, etc., the fork is held in the right hand.

Knives and forks should be held with the handles resting in the palms of the hands and with the elbows close to the sides.

Forks are used, wherever it is possible, for puddings, creams and jellies; by some persons for ice cream, and in some houses both forks and spoons are sent up with them.

With vegetables and macaroni use a fork. Artichokes and olives are eaten in the fingers.

Peaches, pears and apples are prepared for eating by holding the fruit on a fork, and paring with a fruit knife.

Accidents should not be noticed.

In sending up the plate for more of any course, the knife and fork should always be removed. The handles of both knives and forks are loaded, hence there is no danger of soiling the table linen; or, if one is skillful, they may be held in one hand carelessly.

Always break the bread.

Do not fold the napkin after dinner, leave it beside the plate.

Never pass a plate offered you to some one else.

Do not let the teaspoon remain in the cup while using; leave it in the saucer.

Gloves should be worn to the table and removed. Dinner should be announced to the hostess. The host leads the way with the principal lady guest, or the eldest one present, and the hostess should bring up the rear with the principal gentleman, whom she seats upon her right, taking her own seat opposite the host. at Gentlemen assist the ladies they have accompanied to seats, then seat themselves.

Gentlemen are informed what lady they will have the honor of taking out, and, if strangers,are given an introduction, though in England this formality is sometimes dispensed with, as guests at a dinner party are free to converse with those next them without a previous introduction. A gentleman will take out to dinner some other lady than his wife, a brother will select some one to fill the place of his sister, while these ladies have already, it may be, accepted the escort of some stranger. Guests may remain one hour after dinner.

Melons that are sufficiently soft are eaten with a spoon.

A knife and fork both are used in eating salad, if it is not cut up before serving.

Pine-apple is the only fruit that requires the use of both knife and fork.