“A.,” Weston-super-Mare. Your question is a very unusual one. As a general rule, we should say it is a wife’s duty to take her proper place at her husband’s table. There may be circumstances, in your case, which would greatly modify the rule. It will involve trial, of course, for a Christian to sit at a worldly dinner party; but then, if a Christian wife were enabled to carry herself with grace and dignity in such a scene, it might commend the Gospel, and prove a blessing to her husband and his guests. But if, as you say, the husband does not insist upon the wife’s presence at his dinner parties, and if her absence would not give rise to unpleasant surmisings—if, in a word, there is a proper, understanding between all parties, then, of course, the wife can act as she feels disposed. We cannot but judge it to be a most unhappy state of things where such a question has to be asked, and we feel most deeply for all Christians in such circumstances.