The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1892-03-17
THE HOSTESS AND HER GUESTS.

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! Interesting Game of Hide and Seek.
ing abroad in the community, and very
likely elsewhere as well as in Boston, in
regard to the true functions of the host
ess at an afternoon tea; and the editor,
who goes about burdened with the ter
rife consciousness that he is the only
person alive who knows the exact truth
about everything, is willing to give an
otherwise unoccupied moment in the
calculation of the matter.
The duties of hostess at an afternoon
tea, then, are far more simple than they
are at most social functions. It is first
and primarily her duty to welcome every
body who arrives with either the air Of
greeting her dearest friends or with the
blase and wearied air of one who has got
beyond the point where any mortal was
of the slightest possible interest to her
1t is at the option of the hostess which of
these manners she will choose, and Of
course if she is clever woman, she Sc
lects the one which is most becoming to
her style of face and figure, and dresses
to suit the manner decided upon.
This being done, or rather this point
being attended to, the only other duty of
the hostess which is of any especial i'm
portance is the breaking up of any inter
esting and pleasant conversation. If she
perceives-and it is her duty to be on
the watch with eagle eyes-that two per-
sons are enjoying each others society,
or that couple are chatting together
with any animation, it is imperative that
she should swoop down upon them in
stantly, saying:
There, you two cannot stay here talk
ing all the afternoon"
She must then select as a partner for
each in a new conversation the person in
the company who is most completely
disagreeable to him and to her and az
range each to his most complete dis
satisfaction.
This is the great and most imperative
object of an afternoon tea. The hostess
is not a success who leaves two agree
able and harmonious persons within
speaking distance for more than an in
fraction of moment; and it
is by her power of making things I'M
pleasant that her cleverness and social
SAVIOR faire are to be judged.
This peculiar form of social torture is
mitigated by the part which the guest
is expected to play. 1t is his right and
privilege to do all in his power to cir
cumvent the schemes of the hostess for
his unhappiness, and to arrange the most
pleasant possible tete-a-tetes in her de-
spite. The longer he can prolong them,
moreover, the greater is his rank as So
cial lion
An afternoon tea thus becomes Il sort
of game, in which the cleverness of the
hostess is pitted against the cleverness
of the guest. The odds in favor of the
hostess are the contrariety of circum-
stances, the conventions Of society which
forbid the victims to leave the unwel-
come partners to whom they are pre-
scented except in ceremonious ways, and
the fact that for the time being the
guests are under her orders.
On the part Of the guests, however, is
the fact that there are so many couples
that it is an exceedingly clever hostess
who can keep track of them all, and
also the possibility of getting into some
sly and secluded nook where she will
not think to look. Of course the hostess
knows the corners in her own house
pretty thoroughly, but she has not the
time while attending to so many guests
to run out every few moments to ex-
plore the conservatory if it is open, to
look under the stairs in the hall, to peer
into the bay windows and to examine
any alcove which the fiendish foresight
of a masculine architect has struggled
into the designs of her house for her
confusion.
The odds are about even in the game
it is evident, and yet-and yet it is the
editors painful conviction that it is al
ways the hostess who gets the better in
the game!-Boston Courier.