About a year ago Eliza and myself had a little difference of opinion. I had mentioned to her that we had no visiting cards.
“Of course not,” she said. “I should not dream of such a thing!“ She spoke a little angrily.
Why do you say “of course not?” I replied quietly. “Visiting cards are, I believe, in common use among ladies and gentleman.”
She said she did not see what that had to do with it.
“It has just this much to do with it,” I answered, “that I do not intend to go without visiting cards another day!”
“What’s the use?” she asked. “We never call on anybody ever calls on us.”
“Is Miss Sakers nobody?”
“Well, she’s never left a card here, and she really is a lady by birth, and can prove it. When she doesn’t fine me in, she just asks the girl to say she’s been here. If she does not need cards, we don’t. You’d better do the same as she does.”
“Thank you, I have my own ideas of what is respectable, and I do not take them from Miss Sakers. I shall order fifty of each sort from Amfod’s this morning.”
“Then that makes a hundred cards wasted.”
“Either you cannot count,” I said, “or you have yet to learn that there are three sorts of cards used by married people --- the husband’s card, the wife’s card, and the card with both names on it.”