DEAR MISS MANNERS: While shopping for dining room furniture, my friend and I got into a discussion as to why there are two chairs with arms and the rest without. My friend said those chairs were for the host and hostess.

I find it hard to believe that the host and hostess would want to be more comfortable than their guests. The whole idea sounds a bit selfish to me.

Obviously, there wouldn't be enough room if all the chairs had arms. It just seems very crass that the host and hostess would think they're above everyone else.

GENTLE READER: Your friend is correct that the chairs are for the host and hostess, and you are correct that this goes against our most basic idea of how to treat a guest. Now that you bring it up, Miss Manners is amazed that no one questioned this discrepancy before.

The explanation goes all the way back in the history of Western eating customs to feudalism. This was before the invention of the dining room, and dinner was served in the great hall of a castle where the lord of and his high-ranking guests sat at the so-called "high table," which survives at British universities. Lower-ranking people, whether guests or retainers, sat at tables set below at right angles. Thus the hosts were quite literally above their guests. The often elaborate salt cellar was on the high table, and so the less significant people sat -- guess what? -- below the salt.

More germane to your question is the fact that the very highest-ranking people -- not everyone at the high table, but very likely the host -- sat in armchairs, while the lower-ranking ones sat on stools or benches. Today's dining room customs follow this by providing the two armchairs for the hosts and the armless ones as the equivalent of armless stools or benches.

What we did change is the ranking system, placing guests above hosts. But by now, the tradition of armchairs at the table's ends for the hosts is so engrained that it is not likely to change. Miss Manners is a great believer in not interpreting traditions too literally.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a young adult and recently found out that a childhood friend of mine is pregnant. It was a bit of a shock, since we had grown up together and had at one point been very close. I was at quite a loss for words, and wasn't sure how to respond. She is not an adult yet, but I believe she intends to marry the father of the child, although I'm not certain. So therefore, it's not clear whether or not this is a happy occasion. I was wondering what the proper response would be.

GENTLE READER: The proper response to announcements of all births, marriages and combinations of the two are to treat them as happy occasions. Similarly, you must treat every death as a sad occasion, even if the deceased was a monster and the bereaved will inherit a fortune.

However, Miss Manners gathers that your friend has made no direct announcement of anything, so no response is yet required. Should the lady tell you that she is being pressured to have or not to have the baby, or to enter into a hateful marriage, that will be your cue to commiserate instead of congratulate.

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You wouldn't think that people would get so emotional about shoes. Fetishists excepted, naturally.

And those foolhardy people who keep trying to get Miss Manners to rescind the rule against wearing white shoes between Labor Day and Memorial Day.

Oh, yes, and the ones who install flooring or rugs that they don't want anyone to walk on. Miss Manners is not impressed when they try to out-etiquette her by citing the Japanese custom of removing the shoes before entering a house. Those who claim this are not apt to be Japanese, nor in Japan, nor aware that Japanese etiquette is directed toward making the guest feel that he has honored the house by entering it, rather than that he had better not mess anything up.

Summer brings out a whole new foot crowd, and even more toes. There are also more wrinkled noses on people who don't want to look at those toeses. Toes, Miss Manners meant to say. Apparently it's true that things get slipshod in the summer.

As always when clothing is at issue, the sartorial freedom cry is sounded: Comfort! It's hot out, and feet need all the air they can get. Is that too much to ask?

Sometimes it is too much to ask. Other people's sensibilities may be involved.

Miss Manners is skeptical about all those complaints involving smells and funguses. No doubt such problems do arrive in connection with barefooted-ness and open-air shoes, but she has an idea that these accusations are also made when that is not what is truly troubling people.

In clothing disputes, it is the symbolism that arouses the greatest emotions, especially among people who vehemently deny that there is any such aspect to the matter. Those who defy dress conventions claim to do so only for comfort and self-expression, while those whom they upset condemn them only on the basis of sanitation and aesthetics.

This hardly explains why fashions go in and out of conventional acceptability, and why what is considered attractive and healthy on a beach repulses onlookers elsewhere. Nor does it explain the illogic by which shoes are regarded in terms of formality.

Shoes that are held onto the visible foot only by straps are at both ends of the formality scale. If they have flat soles and leather or plastic straps, they are sandals, only fit to wear with bathing suits, shorts and jeans. If they have stiletto heels (speaking of comfort) and satin straps, they are only fit to wear with ball gowns.

Laced shoes that fully cover the foot are businesslike, unless they are made of cloth, in which case they should be changed when arriving at one's business.

Backless shoes are hardly considered shoes at all if they are called flip-flops. If they are called slides they are fit to go out socially, and if they are called mules they are fit to entertain guests at home.

While Miss Manners accepts all this without expecting it to make sense, she is not heartless. Yes, shoes can make the feet uncomfortably warm in summer. So wear the correct ones and kick them off under the table. Just so you can find them afterward by feel, without having to crawl around on the floor.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was reprimanded by a friend while at a movie theater when I took a couple of pieces of her candy without asking. Who was in the wrong? Should I have asked, or should she have been more forthcoming with the candy?

GENTLE READER: Where were you when your friend stopped by the candy counter? Nice as it is to share, Miss Manners imagines that your friend assumed that since you didn't buy any candy, you didn't want any.

Grabbing what is not offered is culinary larceny. Your only hope is to say, "That looks good; maybe I should go get some." However, if the movie had started, you would have been committing a different etiquette transgression against everyone within hearing range. Then your only recourse is to slip out, if you can do so unobtrusively, or to control yourself.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: At a baseball game last evening, two men sat behind me with their young daughters who appeared to be about 7 and 5 years old. One of the gentlemen told the other that he was going to the concession stand, to which the second replied, "I'll help you." He then tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You'll watch the girls, won't you?"

I replied, "Sir, I know nothing of children, and will not be responsible for yours."

He then turned to the children, pointed to a women with three children several rows distant, and said, "OK, see that mommy? She'll help you if you need anything," and left with his companion.

Miss Manners, what should a maiden lady have done? My only contact with children is with my college-age nieces and nephews who write polite thank-you notes from distant states. Was it at all appropriate for this man to leave his children in the care of complete strangers? Should I have acquiesced to what seemed to me to be callous abandonment of children? I have never run into this situation before.

GENTLE READER: Little as Miss Manners wants to assist irresponsible fathers, she would be even more reluctant to ignore the children they deserted.

Your response was certainly justified, and should have shamed the fathers into realizing that it was an improper request, impolitely put. As it did not, and as they then deserted their charges without so much as securing an agreement from the other stranger, you should have notified a stadium authority about abandoned small children. The resulting fuss would at least teach the fathers that there are consequences, and perhaps alert the children's mothers.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I know how you love a good flatware question, so here's mine: I am planning to buy -- finally! -- a set of flatware that actually matches, probably good quality stainless. However, nobody who makes stainless seems to make round-bowled soupspoons, also known as bouillon spoons. These are the sort of soupspoons with which I grew up (though in sterling -- I'll inherit these someday, but being very fond of my dear mother, I'm in no hurry) and I much prefer them.

I have a couple of very beaten-up, used-to-be-silver-plated round-bowled spoons from my grandfather's estate, and have been using them for all sorts of soups, and even for things like chili and stew, all along. However, they look terrible, and, anyway, I only have two of them.

So my question is twofold: One, just how wrong have I been, lo these many years, eating all sorts of soups with a round-bowled spoon? I really do vastly prefer these to the big oval spoons. And two, if I can find some round-bowled soupspoons in an online auction, how tacky would it be for them to not match my new stainless flatware? I am aware that it's quite all right to mix silver patterns, since one might well inherit more than one style, but everyday stainless is hardly so exalted.

GENTLE READER: The good news is that, yes, you may mix patterns. The bad news confirms what you already know: that soup eaten from a bowl requires round spoons (although these should not be confused with the smaller round bouillon spoons used to eat bouillon from a two-handled soup cup).

Taking your word for it that round-bowled stainless steel spoons do not exist, Miss Manners recommends exhausting yourself by trying to track down soup plates, rather than bowls, that go with your china or pottery.

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