About cocktail parties--well, I don't quite know. I rather suspect that they are bad things. They always seem to remind me of the remark in the Bible about the disciples when they spake with tongues and some one said: "These men are wine bibbers." I rather think that cocktail parties are a form of wine bibbing. Still they play an important part in the life of some people, and I had better tell you about them. As a matter of fact, quite a large number of people at a cocktail party don't drink cocktails at all, and in any case, they are taken in a very small shallow glass. The sort one usually gets at a cocktail party is the Bronx or Martini variety. The former consists, I believe, largely of gin and orange juice and has a very cheering effect. People mostly walk about and chat about nothing in particular. They are generally on their way home from church and nicely dressed. It is unpleasant to see girls drinking cocktails. Our breeding gives us all a certain reserve of strength to stick to our ideals. A few cocktails, sometimes even one, helps to knock this down and the results are often regrettable. People talk about things sometimes that are usually regarded as sacred and there are children about, for the next in power after madame in an American household is the offspring of the house. Still quite nice American girls drink cocktails, although nearly always their men folk dislike it. In Bethlehem, however, I have never seen a girl friend drink anything stronger than orangeade. That is what I love about my friends in Bethlehem. Some of them have had a fairly hard struggle to get on. They don't whine about it or even boast, but they are firmly decided in their effort to give their daughters every opportunity to be even more perfect gentlewomen than they are naturally. Still some quite young American girls drink cocktails and then become quite amusing and very witty, and one decides that they are priceless companions, but out of the question as wives.