BOTH
ILLUSTRATIONS
Laura's Early Morning Lessons Frontispiece PAGE Laura Rises for the Day 44 Laura Combines Breakfast and Philanthropy 84 Laura's Music Lesson 96 Laura Visits the Sick 140 Laura Dances to Her Mother's Music 222
ADVENTURES AND ENTHUSIASMS
THE PERFECT GUEST
There are certain qualities that we all claim. We are probably wrong, of course, but we deceive ourselves into believing that, short as we may fall in other ways, we really can do this or that superlatively well. "I'll say this for myself," we remark, with an approving glance in the mirror, "at any rate I'm a good listener"; or, "Whatever I may not be, I'm a good host." These are things that may be asserted of oneself, by oneself, without undue conceit. "I pride myself on being a wit," a man may not say; or "I am not ashamed of being the handsomest man in London;" but no one resents the tone of those other arrogations, even if their truth is denied.
It is less common, although also unobjectionable, to hear people felicitate with themselves on being good guests. Indeed, I have lately met two or three who quite impenitently asserted the reverse; and I believe that I am of their company. Trying very hard to be good I can never lose sight of the fact that my host's house is not mine. Fixed customs must be surrendered, lateness must become punctuality, cigarette ends must not burn the mantelpiece, one misses one's own China tea. The bathroom is too far and other people use it. There is no hook for the strop. In short, to be a really good guest and at ease under alien roofs it is necessary, I suspect, to have no home ties of one's own; certainly to have no very tyrannical habits.
I cut recently from the Spectator this rhymed analysis of the perfect guest:
She answered, by return of post,
The invitation of her host;
She caught the train she said she would,
And changed at junctions as she should;
She brought a small and lightish box,
And keys belonging to the locks.
Food, rare and rich, she did not beg,
But ate the boiled or scrambled egg;
When offered lukewarm tea she drank it,
And did not crave an extra blanket,
Nor extra pillows for her head;
She seemed to like the spare-room bed.
She brought her own
