es and accept the token, than by refusal to hurt the
feelings of one who has perhaps offended the letter, but not the
spirit, of the law.

Gifts of flowers to the convalescent--tokens that the busy outside
world has not forgotten him--are among the most graceful expressions of
courteous interest. Any one--even a total stranger--may send these, if
"the spirit moves," and the circumstances are such that the act could
bear no possible misinterpretation.

GALLANTRY AND COQUETRY

That a man enjoys the society of a charming woman, that a woman
delights in the conversation of a brilliant man, is no sign that either
of them is a flirt.

Few things are more vulgar than the readiness to infer a flirtation
from every case of marked mutual interest between a man and a woman.
The interchange of bright ideas, interspersed with the spontaneous
sallies of gallantry and the instinctive _repartee_ of innocent
coquetry--an archery of wit and humor, grave and gay,--this is one of
the salient features of civilized social life. It has nothing in
common with the shallow travesty of sentiment that characterizes a
pointless flirtation. The latter is _bad form_ whenever and wherever
existing. A sincere sentiment is not reduced to the straits of
expressing itself in such uncertain language. It is fair to conclude
that some insincerity, or some lack of a correct basis for sentiment,
is betrayed in every pointless flirtation. It is hopelessly bad form.
Young people who gratify vanity by idle "conquests," so called, make a
sufficiently conspicuous show of ill-breeding; but a _married flirt_ is
worse than vulgar.

A woman may accept every tribute that a chivalrous man may offer to her
talent or wit, so long as it is expressed in a hearty spirit of good
comradeship, and with a clear and unmistakable deference to her
self-respecting dignity; but a well-bred woman will resent as an insult
to her womanhood any quasi-sentimental overtures _from a man who has
not the right to make them_.

Etiquette requires that the association of men and women in refined
circles shall be frank without freedom, friendly without familiarity.
"Flirting" is a plebeian diversion. Every well-bred woman is a queen,
for whose sake every well-bred man will hold a lance in rets.

IN CONCLUSION

Since censoriousness is a quality utterly antagonistic to good manners,
it is well to reflect that, while etiquette lays down many laws, it
also indulgently gra