THERE is some difference of opinion as to whether properly a man should ask permission to call upon a woman or the woman should confer the favor of her own volition. Sometimes this depends on the age of the woman under consideration. The invitation to call of a mature woman of society is the bestowal of a social favor in a sense different from the same request coming from a young girl. A young girl must be very sure indeed that a man would feel flattered by her invitation before she asks him to call. It is usually safe to assume that, if he does wish the acquaintance to go further than chance meetings, he will find a way to make it known to her, thus saving her the embarrassment of taking the initiative.

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The time for making calls upon young women varies in different parts of the country. In the larger cities of the East the conventional time is between four and seven o’clock in the afternoon. In smaller towns of the East and in most southern and western places, evening calls are the mode. When the acquaintance between the young man and the young woman in question is slight, a call of half an hour is considered a proper length. When the acquaintance has mellowed into friendship, the length of the call is not prescribed. A sense of propriety will suggest to both when it should come to an end.

If a servant is in waiting when the caller arrives, this domestic should take care of the young man’s hat, coat and stick, or should designate where the caller may place these things. If the young woman herself should chance to open the door, she must designate where he is “to rest his wraps,” as the negroes say. She must not, on any account, assist him in ridding himself of these articles, nor, later, when he leaves, aid him in getting them together. Nice but socially uninstructed girls lay themselves open to severe criticism through exactly such mistaken actions.

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If the call is a first call, the young man should be presented to the girl’s mother, and if the girl chooses, to other members of the family. In succeeding calls, according to conventional usage in America, it is merely a happen-so whether members of the young woman’s family are present or not.

One can prescribe no rule as to what young men and young women should talk about. The subjects they may discuss are as numerous as the sands of the sea, and depend upon taste, temperament and education.

As to manner, it is well to insist a little, in these days of brusk camaraderie between the sexes, on the fact that courtesy has many charming opportunities of exhibition in the conversation between men and women. There is a kind of deference that, with no lack of frankness, should be cultivated in the attitude of one sex to the other, a quality that makes for agreeable friendship to a rare degree. If one selects this rather than other agreeable qualities of manner as one to be cultivated in the relation of the sexes, it is because it is one so often neglected.

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When a young woman and young man have grown up in the same place and have known each other from childhood, it is proper for them to call each other by their first names, but with acquaintances of maturer years, the occasions for the adoption of this custom should be rare. Nothing is more vulgar for a young woman than an easy and promiscuous habit of addressing Tom, Dick and Harry as such.

A girl should not accept an invitation from a young man before he has called and has been presented to her mother. The invitation once accepted, there are little courtesies which he may pay to her on the occasion of the festivity for which he has asked to accompany her. These courtesies he should not neglect to offer, and she should be gracious in accepting. He may assist her in putting on her wraps. He may put on her overshoes if the weather is damp and a maid be lacking for that purpose. If an extra wrap is demanded he should carry it for her.

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In going up-stairs, the girl precedes the man, but in descending, he goes first. In the street a man who is punctilious walks on the outside of the walk, but this rule is less observed than it was formerly. Of course, a man allows a girl to precede him through any doorway. In leaving a street-car, however, he gets off first in order that he may help her alight.

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It is the duty of a young woman’s escort to be looking after her pleasure and comfort in various ways. If he takes her to a dance, he must see, if possible, that her card is filled. If it is not filled, he should sit out with her the unclaimed dances. Ordinarily, a girl does not cross a ballroom unless accompanied by her escort or her chaperon.

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If a man takes a girl to the theater he should procure a program for her and should assist her in the removal of her wraps. Whenever accidentally or by arrangement, a man accompanies a woman he should not permit her to carry a package, umbrella or wrap, unless the latter be a light summer wrap which she may prefer to retain. The various opportunities offered men for small services, for little gallantries of conduct, can not be registered in detail. They are too many. It is sufficient to say that young women should encourage men in such amiable habits. Favors of the sort indicated are without cost and yet beyond price. If accepted graciously they react on manners to the advantage of both sexes. They help to make of society the pleasing spectacle which we imagine it to be in our dreams.

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Young women who are guests at a box party should sit in the front seats with the men behind them. The writer was witness during the current year of a small-town box party straggling into a city theater, where each girl was awkwardly ranged alongside of her escort. The clumsy unsophisticated air of the party, each Jack beside his Jill, needs no comment.

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A young girl should not grant a request for an interchange of letters with a young man without consulting her mother. A young woman should remember in writing to a young man that written words are not like spoken ones and are far more capable of misinterpretation. Though prudence is not a generous quality, it is one to be observed in all letter-writing but that arising out of the most intimate relations.

The subject of letter-writing suggests the miniature accomplishment of note-writing. The art of brief sprightly expression on paper is one that is worth striving for. It is capable of yielding pleasure in many of the relations of life, in none more conspicuously than in the relation between young men and young women. A military man of some distinction was interviewing the lady principal of a girls’ school with reference to placing his daughter there. “What would you like to have her taught?” said the principal. “Some history;” he said meditatively, “an appreciation of good literature, and the art of writing as agreeable a note as her mother did before her.”

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A young woman should hesitate to isolate herself from general society by accepting too great an amount of attention from any one man unless she intends to marry him. As long as she is in doubt on this head she has, prudery to the contrary, a right to accept the usual attentions from those men whom she likes. If she is so imprudent as to shut herself off from general companionship before she has reached a decision as to marriage and then decide in the negative, she is likely to suffer for her imprudence. By a ludicrous chance dependent upon the relation of the sexes, the man in the case, if he cares to reenter society, regains it much more easily than she. He can go about and take up dropped threads while she is waiting at home for callers who do not arrive. He is welcomed back with enthusiasm by the girls who thought him lost forever, while her recent avoidance of general society is counted against her.

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When a young man finds his affections engaged he should formally ask the girl’s father for her hand and should state his financial condition. This rule of an older civilization than ours is much ridiculed in many sections of our country; and it is true that there are instances where it would not apply, where, for reasons, the young man should make his initial plea to the girl herself. But, generally speaking, the custom is to be commended. A young man may well suppose that a girl’s father will have her best interests at heart. If the young man is serious in his desire for her happiness he will have the courage to ask her of one of the two persons to whom she is dearest.

The whole matter of acquaintance between young men and young women is one of supreme importance in that it may lead to results of supreme importance. In view of this fact it is amazing that parents and guardians so often leave this matter to the action of chance, that they do not feel the wisdom of exercising a guiding hand in the choice of associates for the young people under their care. We have a prejudice against the European custom of social espionage over the young. But it is safe to assume that if we had more of such espionage sentimental disasters would not be so frequent as they now are, and more true and lasting friendships between young men and young women would be formed. The older members of the household should take a part in creating the social atmosphere in which their children move. They should cultivate the friendship and acquaintance of young people so that they may be able the more easily and wisely to exert an influence in the right direction. Only the opinion and taste of the person most concerned should be final and decisive in the matter of personal relations, but persuasion and direction are mighty forces to be employed. Especially should parents of attractive young women make it their business to know something about the young men who frequent the house. Said a father of five well-married young women: “I made it a rule in my daughters’ girlhood to allow no young man the entrÉe to my house who was not eligible in the sense of character and breeding.” It is true that youth and age will not always agree on the qualities of desirable companionship, and it is also true that in these disagreements age is sometimes wrong and youth is right; but this does not interfere with the truth of the statement that maturity should give to youth all the help possible in the frequently momentous choice of friends, particularly of those belonging to the opposite sex.

It is customary, shortly before a wedding, for a girl to give a farewell luncheon to her intimate girl friends, including her bridesmaids, and for a man to entertain his ushers at a dinner or supper party.

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It is expected at parties that the gentlemen present will attend on the ladies, in the old-fashioned word “wait” on them. Yet at many such affairs one sees the men congregated in the hall, eating their salads and ices, while the women are ungallantly left to themselves. Servants may supply them with refreshments if the hostess has so planned, but the attendance is required just the same.

A well-bred man will not in general society make a marked distinction in the courtesy he shows to a woman who is unusually attractive and her companion who is less fortunate. He will ask the plainer woman to dance and will see that she has ices, and he may find, after all, some unexpected reward in a quality of hidden charm beneath the unpromising exterior. Generosity in social situations is a severe test of character and for that reason it is seen less often than one would wish. The man who joins a woman sitting conspicuously alone and devotes himself to her entertainment if for only a quarter of an hour deserves all the warm unspoken gratitude that is sure to be felt by the woman.

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A girl should be careful not to mistake the merely polite attentions of a man for the advances of a lover. Men are afraid of such a girl because of the embarrassments that ensue, while they feel “safe” with a sensible one who can be friendly without becoming sentimental and who does not view every man she dances with as a possible husband.

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A woman who is invited by a man to take luncheon with him at his club will find a side entrance reserved for the use of ladies, and a parlor where she may be joined by her escort.

When a man is saying good-by to a group of ladies, he should, on leaving the room, turn his back as little as possible.

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