party is small and quiet, tea-gowns are quite in order even at dinner, but in others those comfortable garments are relegated to their proper sphere, appearing only at five o’clock tea, the wearers blossoming forth at a later hour in the smartest and most up-to-date of toilettes. Tea-jackets answer the purpose of tea-gowns, but one or other should be packed, although it may chance after all to stay in the wardrobe, never being required either at tea or dinner. Some pretty frocks which would do alike for party or dinner must be taken, and a few odds and ends of ribbon, bits of lace and sprays of artificial flowers, in case real ones are not to be had from the gardener, come in useful especially if an impromptu fancy dress dinner is arranged, and “the shop” in the village, with its stock-in-trade varying from candles and ironmongery to very thin cottony ribbons of abnormal hues, bunches of scarlet geranium, and poppies with woolly buds, is the only place where anything can be got. In deciding what to take and what to leave behind, space necessarily must be considered, and it is astonishing the quantity of things one person will bring out of a box, almost like a conjuror and his inexhaustible hat, while another woman can hardly make the same sized receptacle hold half that number of articles. The difference comes partly from natural genius and partly from habit. In any case it is better to take two or three trunks of moderate dimensions than one mountain, which taxes the strength of even railway-porters, and makes servants look askance when they see a sort of elephant in the hall, waiting to be transported somehow upstairs. More than all, have your luggage tidy, locks secure, straps ditto. Bags and portmanteaus have a way of getting out of order, as regards the spring. I have seen specimens of both, strapped certainly, but not really locked, so that an aperture was visible all along the top, which should have been closed, and I have felt sorry for the owners. These details, although they seem hardly in touch with my subject, are yet not entirely unconnected with it, inasmuch as one rule is to encourage things pleasant, and avoid, or ignore, things disagreeable. The wheels of daily life run over rough as well as smooth ground, and the inevitable jars and concussions would be even more apparent than they are, were it not for the oil provided by the Rules of Society. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. MEDICAL. SEPTEMDECIM.—Probably you will go on growing for five years longer. Besides which 5 feet 4 inches is not so very short for a woman. It is a very good medium height. It is extremely probable that you will put on another couple of inches, and that in a few years you will be writing to ask us how to get shorter.