akfast and when
eating alone, but a man and his wife should no more read at lunch or
dinner before each other or their children than they should allow their
children to read before them.

=THE TABLE NOT A PLACE FOR PRIVATE DISCUSSION=

One very bad habit in many families is the discussion of all of their most
intimate affairs at table--entirely forgetting whoever may be waiting on
it; and nine times out of ten those serving in the dining-room see no harm
(if they feel like it) in repeating what is said. Why should they? It
scarcely occurs to them that they were "invisible" and that what was
openly talked about at the table was supposed to be a secret!

Apart from the stupidity and imprudence of talking before witnesses, it is
bad form to discuss one's private affairs before any one. And it should be
unnecessary to add that a man and his wife who quarrel before their
children or the servants, deprive the former of good breeding through
inheritance, and publish to the latter that they do not belong to the
"better class" through any qualification except the possession of a bank
account.

Furthermore, parents must never disagree before the children. It simply
can't be! Nor can there be an appeal to one parent against the other by a
child.

"Father told me to jump down the well!"

"Then you must do it, dear," is the mother's only possible comment. When
the child has "jumped down the well," she may pull him out promptly, and
she may in private tell her husband what she thinks about his issuing such
orders and stand her own ground against them; but so long as parents are
living under the same roofs that roof must shelter unity of opinion, so
far as any witnesses are concerned.

CHAPTER XXXVII

TRAVELING AT HOME AND ABROAD

To do nothing that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others,
sums up the principal rules for conduct under all circumstances--whether
staying at home or traveling. But in order to do nothing that can annoy or
give offense, it is necessary for us to consider the point of view of
those with whom we come in contact; and in traveling abroad it is
necessary to know something of foreign customs which affect the foreign
point of view, if we would be thought a cultivated and charming people
instead of an uncivilized and objectionable one. Before going abroad,
however, let us first take up the subject of travel at home.

Since it is not likely that any one would go around the world