the subject of observation and comment, and he suffers agonies of mauvaise honte. Girls often laugh very unkindly at shy youths, when they might find opportunities of acting the good angel to them, and by the exercise of tact screening from observation those failures in good manners which are inevitable to the inexperienced. When he finds himself the butt of a few giggling girls, a young man feels miserably uncomfortable and humiliated, and he vows to himself that he will never again put himself in the way of such annoyance. Consequently he cuts good society, not realising that he would very soon overcome these initial difficulties and feel at home in it.

“We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

He must find amusement somewhere. It is only natural to youth to crave it. At first his taste is jarred by those inferior to him, and his fastidiousness offended by their manners. But, such is the fatal adaptability of human nature to what is bad for it, he soon becomes accustomed to all that he at first objected to, and even forgets that he had ever found anything disagreeable in it. After a few months his speech begins to assimilate the errors of those about him in his leisure hours. He uses the very expressions that jarred upon him at first. His dress and carriage deteriorate, and he is well on his way downhill in life long before he realises that he has quitted his own level, probably for ever.

“If he had only held his own!”

And if only he had held his own at a few gatherings, and acquired experience, even at the cost of a little present pain and mortification, he would in the same interval of time be enjoying society, educating himself in its customs, and acquiring that exterior polish which comes of intimate acquaintance with its rules and ease in practising them.

The object of this book.

Those early days!

Should this little manual of manners be of use to any such in enabling them to master the theory, as it were, of social customs in the educated classes, it will have attained its aim. I have always felt the greatest compassion for young men when first introduced, after school and college life, to the routine of dinner, dance, and ball. I have not forgotten the days when shyness made my own heart sink at the prospect of a dinner-party and when the hardest task on earth was the finding of nothings to say to a partner at a ball. It is a miserable feeling of confusion and gaucherie, and if I can in any way avert it from others it will be a source of great gratification to me.