St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls | Page 8

ourselves agreeable and welcome guests. To have "a nice time" when
one is visiting is delightful, but to leave behind us a pleasant
impression is worth a great deal more.
An agreeable guest is a title which any one may be proud to deserve. A

great many people, with the best intentions and the kindest hearts,
never receive it, simply because they have never considered the subject,
and really do not know how to make their stay in another person's
home a pleasure instead of an inconvenience. If you are one of these
thoughtless ones, you may be sure that, although your friends are glad
to see you happy, and may enjoy your visit on that account, your
departure will be followed with a sigh of relief, as the family settle
down to their usual occupations, saying, if not thinking, that they are
glad the visit is over.
A great many different qualities and habits go to make up the character
of one whom people are always glad to see, and these last must be
proved while we are young, if we expect to wear them gracefully. A
young person whose presence in the house is an inconvenience and a
weariness at fifteen, is seldom a welcome visitor in after-life.
The two most important characteristics of a guest are tact and
observation, and these will lead you to notice and do just what will give
pleasure to your friends in their different opinions and ways of living.
Apply in its best sense the maxim--"When you are in Rome, do as the
Romans do."
Unless you have some good reason for not doing so, let your friends
know the day, and, if possible, the hour when you expect to arrive.
Surprises are very well in their way, but there are few households in
which it is quite convenient to have a friend drop in without warning
for a protracted visit. If they know that you are coming, they will have
the pleasure of preparing for you and looking forward to your arrival,
and you will not feel that you are disturbing any previous arrangements
which they have made for the day.
Let your friends know, if possible, soon after you arrive, about how
long you mean to stay with them, as they might not like to ask the
question, and would still find it convenient to know whether your visit
is to have a duration of three days or three weeks. Take with you some
work that you have already begun, or some book that you are reading,
that you may be agreeably employed when your hostess is engaged
with her own affairs, and not be sitting about idle, as if waiting to be

entertained, when her time is necessarily taken up with something else.
Make her feel that, for a small part at least of every day, no one needs
to have any responsibility about amusing you.
A lady who is charming as a guest and as a hostess once said to me: "I
never take a nap in the afternoon when I am at home, but I do when I
am visiting, because I know what a relief it has sometimes been to me
to have company lie down for a little while, after dinner."
Try, without being too familiar, to make yourself so much like one of
the family that no one shall feel you to be in the way; and, at the same
time, be observant of those small courtesies and kindnesses which all
together make up what the world agrees to call good manners.
Regulate your hours of rising and retiring by the customs of the house.
Do not keep your friends sitting up until later than usual, and do not be
roaming about the house an hour or two before breakfast. If you choose
to rise at an early hour, remain in your own room until near
breakfast-time, unless you are very sure that your presence in the parlor
will not be unwelcome. Write in large letters, in a prominent place in
your mind, "BE PUNCTUAL." A visitor has no excuse for keeping a
whole family waiting, and it is unpardonable negligence not to be
prompt at the table. Here is a place to test good manners, and any
manifestation of ill-breeding here will be noticed and remembered. Do
not be too ready to express your likes and dislikes for the various
dishes before you. The wife of a certain United States Senator once
visiting acquaintances at some distance from her native wilds, made a
lasting impression upon the family by remarking at the breakfast-table
that "she should starve before she would eat mush," and that she "never
heard of cooking mutton before she came East."
If you are tempted to go to the other extreme, and