In all attempts at refinement, one cardinal point should be kept in view — that manners were made for men, not men for manners. Most rules will be found to serve convenience, and there is no good breeding where etiquette is not observed for this end, the order and comfort of all concerned, not for the sake of defining one's social position. When any one begins to study manners as a set of arbitrary rules, followed because every other desirable acquaintance does the same, politeness breeds a sort of pharisaism that the best bred persons look down on as supremely vulgar. If any mistress of a house looks here for rules that will aid her to affect a trifle more of style than her neighbors she will only be disappointed. If any woman wishes hints how to reduce her household to regularity and make her children neat and gentle in habits, it may be that she will not find this chapter in vain.

Martinet regularity as to hours and minutes is no longer held the saving virtue in a household. The rule in many families keeps all the rest waiting for a meal if one is tardy. Modern custom both for the family and for din(27) ner parties takes the sensible course of sitting down to table when the hour comes, and most of the company has arrived. No guest should feel affronted, if he is late, and finds the party at dinner, provided the indispensable care has been shown to keep his portion warm over dishes of hot water, by which they neither grow cold or are dried up in the oven. Order the table daily with the same care as for a dinner party. This is the only way to insure success for hostess and servants when one does come off, and gives mistress and waiter the luxury of getting used to nice style, so that it is just as easy as common ways, and no sudden visitor can put them out. Home tables do not always compare to advantage with those at the restaurant or club, and the housemother should see that a man finds as careful service at home as he does anywhere else. Unlimited laun-dry work should be one of the indulgences of one's own house, and it should be of the utmost nicety. Why should it be too much to provide clean napkins and table-cloth daily at home as well as at a hotel ? They would cost half an hour's extra work a day, and this is not too much for the refinement it gives. We should then expect to see the table spread with a snowy cloth, less starched than many housekeepers think necessary, finish and pliancy being given by plenty of wax in the starch, which will keep it clean the longer. It should fall below the table half a yard all round, and be pinned up at the corners to keep it from the floor if necessary. For ceremonious occasions a common white cloth is laid under the table-cloth to protect a handsome table, keep the upper cloth from wearing, and because dishes make less noise when. set down on it.

For breakfast the coffee is set before the mistress, the cups and spoons ranged in their saucers in front of it, in two rows if there are many of them ; the meat and the plates which should be warm, are set before the master; salt, butter and castor at the corner to the right of both, head and foot, if the table is a large one, when two sets of these things will be convenient. Otherwise put them in the center with the dishes in regular order around them, and relishes at the corners. To meet this order, it is a trifle to have dishes in pairs of the same size, and use them always together for different things. Fruit, whether berries, baked apples, or pears, is served first at breakfast, then oatmeal or wheaten grits, now found on every good table in cities at least, then meats and vegetables, with toast, hot cakes and coffee following. Hot rolls come wrapped in a napkin to keep them warm, griddle-cakes between two hot plates, and all meats covered. Baked potatoes are scrubbed with a manilla brush, the ends cut off, rinsed twice, and eaten without paring, as the best flavor goes with the skin. This is the custom with the best society in this country and abroad. Eggs are washed with a cloth in cold water before boiling, and eaten in egg cups from the shell, chipping the small end off, or broken into larger glasses, or held in the napkin and eaten from the shell, with entire good form, in either method. Where individual salt-cellars are used they should be emptied after each meal, and the salt thrown away, that one person may not use it after another, and they should be 2 very small, that there be less wasted. Butter should be piled round a lump of ice in little pats. To be very nice, as many have learned to like it from living abroad, it should be churned daily from perfectly sweet cream, worked without being touched by the hands or with water, and without a particle of salt. Thus it has the delicate flavor of cream at its best. Honey is especially a breakfast delicacy, and so is maple syrup, which should be served in small saucers to be eaten with hot biscuit. A basket of crisp cakes, toasted rusk and crackers, will accompany coffee.

For lunch the colored table cloths may be used, though their use has been gradually dropped because the colors do not wash well. White cloths with striped border in colors, or fine gray or brown unbleached damask, with napkins to match, assist the easy half-dress style of this repast. Cups of broth and thick chocolate, with light meats, hashes, croquettes, and stews, salad and fruit are the staple variety, and rather more attractive than the cold meat, tea and cracker fare too often set apart for this hurried meal. Nowhere is negligence more annoying than at luncheon, and the cloth, glasses, and arrangements should be fastidiously neat to do away with the disagreeable feeling that everybody is too busy with drudgery to look after comfort. Insist that the girl who waits on the table has her hair neat, her hands washed, and a clean apron and collar on. An unkempt servant will spoil the best dinner appetite was ever sharp-set for. Ceremonious lunches mean an hour's visit with a meal, at which salads, shell-fish, chops in paper frills, and broiled chicken play a part, with ices, tarts and fancy cakes for dessert. Mixed drinks, like Regent's punch, or claret cup, with ale and beer, are more in keeping at lunch than wines. These drinks are served from the side-board, the malt liquors in common goblets, the claret cup in tumblers, the punch in small cups. Beef tea is taken from cups held in very small saucers, or in small Chinese bowls, with little saucers. The absence of all ceremony with the presence of light charming detail makes the luncheon attractive.

For dinner, the family table wants to have less the air of hotel arrangements. More delicate napery and ware, whether the latter is only "seconds "or the finest egg-shell china; lighter, more convenient, knives and forks, and heavier teaspoons, nice thin glass for drinking, thick cut crystal for sweets, with above all things a well kept cruet stand, make the difference in favor of home taste and home comfort. Keep all cracked and nicked ware from the table. Buy nothing that cannot be replaced without regret, but let each article be the best of its material. There is choice in the quality of stone ware and blown glass as well as in the shapes of each. The plainest is always most satisfactory in inexpensive things. The old fashion of furnishing dining-rooms in dark and heavy styles is reversed. The room is light, cheerful, warm in color, the chairs broad and substantial, the table lower than it used to be, two points which add sensibly to the comfort of those who use them. Have the chair feet shod with rubber tips which come for the purpose, or if on castors, cover the wheel with rubber so that they can move without noise. See that the room is light and especially warm, for people want comfort at meals of all times, and they feel the cold more in sitting.