The self effacing hostess is a very popular brand. If it weren’t for her week-end parties, society never could catch up with its correspondence. She isn’t in the least entertaining--and she mercifully doesn’t try to be. She thoughtfully effaces herself, and leaves you in your room after supplying each guest with crested paper, assorted pens, and unused stamps. Spending a week-end at her house is much the same thing as spending it in the writing room of the Ritz. [Illustration] THE BISHOP’S MOVE The absent-minded hostess has ruined many a promising young week-end by her unfortunate affliction. She can never quite remember just what people she has asked for the week-end and she _will_ go and ask a bishop, at the last moment. Of course, bishops are a splendid institution and you really couldn’t want anything nicer around a cathedral, but, at a week-end party, when all the tired guests are having their relaxation, a bishop is about as welcome as an outbreak of beri-beri. [Illustration] THE MUSICAL HOSTESS The hostess who is _so_ musical is one of those blessings that we could all get along without. She is always exploring among the fauna of Bohemia and capturing some particularly wild specimen. Her guests spend the week-end, like Daniel, in a lion’s den. There is no let-up to the atrocities. The guests sit in horror, thinking of the things they might be doing in the city, while a hairy conscientious objector does unmentionable things to a piano. [Illustration] THE WELL MEANING HOSTESS The well-meaning hostess is one of the lowest forms. She insists upon everybody’s getting together and having a jolly time. She can’t call it a week-end till each of her guests has committed at least one parlor trick. She is here portrayed in her favorite pursuit of dragging an inoffensive guest to the piano, insisting that she just _knows_ he sings. People spend exactly one week-end at her place; after that, “Very important business keeps me away. So sorry.” [Illustration] THE VANISHING HOSTESS The perfect, or disappearing, hostess is rare. She always invites the One Person you want to spend the week-end with, and then lets nature take its course. She has a perfectly bearable house surrounded by really wonderful grounds. This hostess appears occasionally at dinner, but at all other times she vanishes completely, leaving things to the careful supervision of the faithful family gardener, who has probably seen more biological history in the making than any man in the county. [Illustration] [Illustration] PALM SUNDAY The gilded hostess has one of those rustic cottages, where her guests rough it over Sunday surrounded by vintage champagne, Swiss butlers, liveried footmen. The sketch--from life--shows a guest’s retreat to the city, after a week-end’s bridge; note how effectively the footmen decorate the sketch with palms. After-the-War Servant Problems _How the Great Conflict ended the Golden Days of Service in the Houses of the Elect_