The Englishwoman removes her formality with her hat: with her for hostess new guest and old guest alike find neither ceremony nor constraint. She does not motion them to a settee, in the German fashion, and expect the overflow to group itself primly round the walls of a room obviously devoted only to these chilly entertainments. She takes them into her life when she settles them in the comfortably disposed armchairs of the room she lives in. They may drop out of it again when the door closes behind them, but while they are there all equally share the warmth. It is her wish, not precisely formulated, that those who visit her, whether for an hour or a month, should not be impressed or flattered but should enjoy themselves. She wants them, as the saying is, “to have a good time,” and into the realisation of this desire she brings a charming motherliness—particularly noticeable, I imagine, by men—which is one of her most beautiful qualities. Few races can have such a passion as ours for “having people to stay,” so far as means will allow. All layers of English society have this passion in their hearts. Its satisfaction lays its chief burden on the woman, not only in the increase of domestic arrangements to be made, but in its added demand upon the fund of her social energy. She rises to it like a well-bred horse to a jump, self-spurred by the exercise of an activity for which she is so admirably suited. She may not always be sufficiently imaginative to fit her hospitable offerings to the particular temperament of every guest—though it is just in this discrimination and adaptability that the best Englishwomen shine—but her intention is invariably in that direction. Even Mrs Proudie at the Palace, Barchester, intolerable woman as she was, would have meant well by those who shared her formidable tea-table.