598 MISCELLANEOUS.
Don't, when you drink, elevate your glass as if you were going to stand it inverted on your nose. Bring the glass perpendicularly to the lips, and then lift it to a slight angle. Do this easily.
Drink sparingly while eating. It is far better for the digestion not to drink tea or coffee until the meal is finished. Drink gently, and do not pour it down your throat like water turned out of a pitcher.
When seating yourself at the table, unfold your napkin and lay it across your lap in such a manner that it will not slide off upon the floor ; a gentleman should place it across his right knee. Do not tuck it into your neck like a child's bib. For an old person, however, it is well to attach the napkin to a napkin hook and slip it into the vest or dress buttonholes, to protect their garments, or sew a broad tape at two places on the napkin, and pass it over the head. When the soup is eaten, wipe the mouth carefully with the napkin, and use it to wipe the hands after meals. Finger bowls are not a general institution, and yet they seem to be quite as needful as the napkin, for the fingers are also liable to become a little soiled in eating. They can be had quite cheaply, and should be half -filled with water, and placed upon the side table or butler's tray, with the dessert, bread and cheese, etc. They are passed to each person half filled with water, placed on a parti-colored napkin with a dessert plate underneath, when the des- sert is placed upon the table. A leaf or two of sweet verbena, an orange flower, or a small slice of lemon, is usually put into each bowl to rub upon the fingers. The slice of lemon is most commonly used. The finger tips are slightly dipped into the bowl, the lemon juice is squeezed upon them, and then they are dried softly upon the napkin. At dinner parties and luncheons they are indispensable.
Spoons are sometimes used with firm puddings, but forks are the better style. A spoon should never be turned over in the mouth.
Ladies have frequently an affected way of holding the knife half- way down its length, as if it were too big for their little hands ; but this is as awkward a way as it is weak ; the knife should be grasped freely by the handle only, the fore-finger being the only one to touch the blade, and that only along the back of the blade at its root, and no further down.
At the conclusin of a course, where they have been used, knife and fork should be laid side by side across the middle of the plate never
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