CHILDREN'S GUESTS.
WHEN, Lord Macaulay was a little boy he was the only person in the house to receive Mrs Hannah More when she once made an unexpected call. Feeling that he ought to pay her some attention and offer hospitality, he asked whether she would " take a glass of old spirits." He subsequently explained that he had noticed that this was the form of refreshment usually offered in the stories he had mad,
and that though he did not exactly know what it meant, he felt itto be the right thing to do. Next to being one another's guests, children most dearly love to act as hosts and hostesses ; but their feeling in doing so is not quite the same as that which prompts grown-up hospitality. They find so much delight in the addition to their society, and in fresh people to play with "all the after- noon," that the "pleasure of their company" is even more genuine than when the balance of entertainment lies on the whole rather with the host than the guests, however genially they reciprocate the pleasure of meeting.
Their hospitality is like a nest within a nest. Ilouscroom and table are provided by their elders. But they always choose the guests, initiate the idea, and issue the invitations, if they can by word of mouth. If not, they use the elders as secretaries, because writing letters is hard work. They never by any chance entertain other children from a sense of duty, but solely because they like them. To attempt to impose an unwelcome guest upon them is to court certain failure. There are children who, however brilliantly they may turn out later in life, are not properly appreciated by other children, and whom they firmly decline to admit into
their, circle. "And where," said a kind aunt who was acting as temporary parent to a family of small boys and girls, " where is your little friend Alfred ? " There was a pause ; and then the cheerful answer was returned: " We've locked him up in the garden cellar till he's fetched !"
Feasting, as a rule, forms no great part in their ideas of entertainment. The typical greedy child of the earlier numbers of Punch has ceased to exist, at least among the better class of children. They are far more decided as to the things which they do not like than as to those which they do, and in the latter they indulge with great appreciation, but moderately and with discretion. Little girls especially are highly particular not to transgress the unwritten rules of the table; and if, as they generally do, they happen to know that any of their small guests is under general orders not to eat chocolate biscuits or strawberries, they remind them of the fact with remorseless memories. " No, Bessie, you mustn't; you'll be ill ; and then you won't be let' come again." It is indispensable to the success of this part of the entertain- ment that they shall have the room to themselves, and that the hostess shall pour out tea. It does not matter if none of them care for tea and prefer milk, the tea must be there, and a silver teapot and pretty cups. The severest form of censure passed on an unsuccessful entertainment is that it began " with a regular schoolroom tea." They have the right instinct for selecting guests. Left to themselves, children would never ask a party to meet who would not "go together." If another child happens to accompany its mother on a call at a house where the " schoolroom " is entertaining upstairs, the information will be conveyed on the way up that the guests are " rather noisy " or " rather too big," but that the chance corner "mustn't mind." Thus the stranger enters quite prepared for the company, and the visit passes off successfully.
We are, it is to be feared, greatly behind the Japanese in setting our children up with the machinery of social
amusement. We do not provide them with sets of regular stage costume for known characters or with the standard toys used on different occasions and anniversaries by which, among other devices, the Japanese make their children perhaps the happiest in the world, and, by general consent, the best tempered. But most houses where there are small children have certain set forms of entertainment to which their guests always look forward, just as " grown-ups " do to A's shooting or B's sub- tropical garden. It may be a big rocking-horse (which is always a steady favourite), or a notably high swing, or a boat, or a gymnasium, or a pony to ride on in turns. One of the most successful and lasting means of entertainment is a sand- pit, which permits sociable house-building, or cave-making, or shake-believe cooking, and twenty other activities. Children will give invitations "to our sand-pit" to select friends with aamuch gravity as their elders would to join a garden party. The " noted specialties" at each other's houses may include such diverse material for entertainment as a roof, with a trap- door leading on to it, to climb on ; a stackyard, with liberty to ascend the straw stacks; a hollow tree to play at houses in; a pond to fish in; a summer-house, with a fireplace in it —a great and prized rarity—in which to light a fire and cook toffy ; a hayloft; or a punt. Incidental forms of entertain- ment, for which special invitations are given, are the new litter of puppies, sometimes a new baby, Christmas-trees, and hay-making. The possessions in which they take the greatest joint interest, whether as hosts or guest', are pets. These, however, they never take out with them, except they be dogs, which are dragged off and taken round to all their acquaintances, for common admiration and petting. But the household pets are "passed round" from one visitor to another, each being allowed to hold the rabbit, kitten, guinea-pig, or puppy for a strictly limited time, till it is somebody else's turn.
But beyond all the possibilities of entertaining friends con- ferred by possessions, animate or inanimate, lies the delightful kingdom of imagination, which the addition of other children's minds enables them to widen without bounds or limits. The intercourse of hosts and guests would be really a feast of reason and a flow of soul, were it not that for " reason" we must substitute " fancy." Ideas are the main source of their delight, and the cleverer and brighter the host children, and the quicker and more fanciful their guests, the more inspiring does the entertainment become. It is ten to one that the former have thought out a whole scheme for the afternoon, either of a play or a charade, or of being lost on a desert island, or defending a fortress against hosts of robbers. No sooner is the scheme disclosed than a dozen improvements, amendments, and embellishments are suggested. Every drawer which they are allowed access to is turned out costumes are selected, parts chosen, and the whole play. " goes" at once without rehearsal. Then they require an audience, and descend in their long dresses and with flushed faces to do it all over again before the elders. " BuffalO Bill's" departure has been a source of unmixed regret. There was so much that was suggestive in the various scenes of his show that " receptions " on a scale of unprecedented frequency were organised by most of the children who went there, to re-act their improved versions of the incidents in congenial company. One little girl was heard to mention with regret her misfortune in not being a real Indian. Pressed as to her reasons, she gave as the cause of her envy that if she were a real Indian she could keep her paint on, while now she always had to wash it off every night in the bath.
Among the social assets most prized by child gaests are what are known among themselves as " nice " servants. There is always just a suspicion that there may be servants who are not "nice." By this laudatory adjective they mean servants who do not mind any amount of noise upstairs, and who never say " Don't" from the time when they leave their cloaks in the hall till the sad moment when the dis- creet nurse or maid enters and says : " Miss A and Miss B, you are fetched " this being the invariable formula which with them takes the place of the announcement, " Mrs. C's carriage !" Maids who do not object to all the doors being left open, everything left on the floor, beds being used as gymnasia, and "I spy" and hide-and-seek going on in all the parts of the house usually consecrated to the domestics, or to storing linen or cans or clothes, are in their eyes the pink of perfection, and shining instances of what is meant by the phrase, a " valuable servant." Not that nice children ever intend to give trouble. But they love not to have the " go" of the afternoon, and the excitement which with them is inseparable from entertaining, chilled and damped down by commonplace reminders that their "occupation" is only temporary. Children who have a free and happy home life seldom do anything very out- rageous when left to amuse each other in their own way. They are perfectly and wholly in earnest to enjoy them- selves, but their zeal does not outstrip all bounds. It must be admitted that when they have for their guest* other children who lead a repressed life in their own house, the latter sometimes " go Fantee " in a truly appalling manner under the new and unfamiliar sense of liberty. We shall never forget the expression on the face of a strict, if fond, mother who, on calling to fetch her two most proper little girls after an afternoon of unrestricted freedom with some youthful hosts and hostesses, saw the younger acting as No. 1 in a slide down the banisters; while the other, as was
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