ount, 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 sm