DEAR MISS MANNERS: Why do some people feel it necessary to lie to those they know and appear to love, while they are uncomfortable telling a little white lie to strangers?

Such was the case when a neighbor/friend organized a dinner party for her husband at a popular family-style restaurant for a total of eight dining guests. The neighbor/friend assured us she had a reservation.

However, when we arrived, we learned otherwise and had to wait close to an hour to be seated. The establishment refused her request, as you must have 12 in your party to qualify for a reservation.

Upon inquiry, the neighbor told us that she felt uncomfortable lying to the restaurant hostess, but felt we could find it in our hearts to forgive her.

I am confused by her behavior and believe this could have been handled with a little more thought, in either moving the event to another restaurant or adding four more guests. This is not the first time she has pulled this stunt, only the latest. What are your thoughts?

GENTLE READER: That indeed, there is such a double standard, particularly in regard to restaurants. Miss Manners hears about it in the peculiar confessions of people who panic about their lack of table manners when going to a restaurant -- with no thought for the relatives and friends whom they may have been disgusting for years.

Your friend has already explained the reasoning behind this: that lack of consideration toward one's own circle is permissible because one can probably get away with it. Not a charming attitude.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the protocol for wearing hats? Can they be worn at a wedding? May women wear them only indoors? How does one politely ask a family member to please remove a baseball cap during one's wedding ceremony?

GENTLE READER: During one's wedding ceremony?

Are you telling Miss Manners that rather than gazing into the eyes of your beloved and listening to the officiant explain what you are getting yourself into, you were checking out the guests?

It is true that the only proper hats for wedding guests are outrageous ones worn by ladies attending daytime ceremonies. Had you caught the offender on his way in, you might have enlisted an usher to say, "Sir, would you mind removing your hat," or appealed to your relative's wife, mother or child to snatch it from his head.

However, you cannot police your own wedding guests. So you might just as well concentrate your attention on the ceremony.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it rude for me to take home several pieces of candy from a dish at my girlfriend's dinner party without asking her permission to do so?

The candies were sitting out for anyone to eat. However, I didn't want to eat them there, so I took several to eat later. Is this considered tacky or rude?

GENTLE READER: To treat someone else's house as a free grocery store?

Refreshments of whatever kind are offered for guests to consume during their visits, not to allow them to stock up at the host's expense. Miss Manners would like also to bring this rule to the attention of guests who ask to take home leftovers from meals.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have a large, extended circle of friends who are essentially like family. We also have a large, conveniently located home and frequently have overnight guests. It's not uncommon for a weekend breakfast to include a dozen or more people.

I love cooking for and serving that many guests, but I find the cleanup also winds up falling to me. The results are that instead of spending my day socializing with our guests, I end up in the kitchen, cooking one meal, cleaning up from it, and then beginning preparations for the next.

Short of hiring a maid (simply not a realistic solution for us), or posting a sign-up sheet for KP, is there a polite way to encourage guests to help out? Under the circumstances, is it appropriate to ask for their help? (I would never consider asking invited dinner guests to help me clean up.)

GENTLE READER: A stalwart defender of freely given hospitality, Miss Manners nevertheless recognizes a difference between sometime guests and the like-family sort.

Certainly, dinner guests should never be asked to help. If they want to be helpful, they can answer invitations immediately, refrain from stating their food likes and dislikes, show up on time, socialize cheerfully and leave on time. If they offer to help clear the table or clean up, they may be firmly discouraged, but if such offers are accepted, the work should be kept to a minimum. Overnight guests may volunteer to do more, and should keep their rooms neat.

Like-family is, however, a different category (which, oddly enough, doesn't always include all relatives -- just liked-family, as it were). Friends who qualify have the privilege of proposing their own visits -- subject, of course, to the convenience of the hosts -- but they also have added responsibility. Miss Manners finds it unconscionable that a dozen such people loll around your house while you labor in the kitchen.

Your excuse for asking for help should be that you want to spend more time with your guests. You could take aside a particularly close friend and confide that the work is getting you down a bit, considering that you miss much of the fun; your apparent helplessness, plus the implied threat that you might be closing down, should lead that person to suggest organizing a rotating system so that no one gets left out all the time.

With any luck, this will produce shame, not only in the organizer but in everyone, and you will be approached to design that sign-up sheet.

The risk you take is that they will all pile into the kitchen, having a wonderful time, while you rest alone in the living room.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What do you call the objects that hold up silverware off the table? I have a set and cannot find any info about them.

GENTLE READER: They are knife rests. When flatware was commonly used for different courses, the knives, and their friends the forks, would plop down, exhausted, when no one was looking. And leave a mess on the tablecloth, which can be avoided through the judicious use of knife rests.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Why, upon marriage, were Camilla Parker Bowles and Catherine Middleton styled the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge, rather than "Princess Camilla" or "Princess Catherine"?

GENTLE READER: You would have to ask the British queen, who bestowed those titles. The general belief is that the public would have resented a new Princess of Wales after the death of the previous one. And perhaps it would not have been politic to give the latest member of the family a higher title than that lady's stepmother-in-law.

But under no circumstances would they have been "Princess Camilla" or "Princess Catherine." And although the late Princess of Wales was widely referred to as "Princess Diana," that was incorrect; correctly, she was Diana, Princess of Wales.

This is because the British system makes a distinction between birth and marriage as a way of acquiring titles. With the exception of a queen consort, the title precedes the given name only when inherited. Thus, the late Princess of Wales was, before her marriage, Lady Diana, as her father was an earl. But of course that is a title of nobility, not royalty, and a courtesy title at that. Under the primogeniture system, the children of a living noble have only courtesy titles because they are commoners.

Got that? Glad you live in a republic, so you don't have to know these things?

Oh, wait, Miss Manners realizes that you probably do, because you've been watching "Downton Abbey."

The mother in that series, born an American, is Cora, Countess of Grantham, or Cora Crawley, the family surname, or Lady Grantham, but never "Lady Cora." Her daughters, however, all have "Lady" before their first names because their father is an earl. But remember: That is a courtesy title, and they are commoners. So they could, if the series lasts long enough, stand for election to the House of Commons.

No, that is not a spoiler. Miss Manners has no idea what is happening to these characters. She tuned out when she saw them wearing their gloves to dinner in their own house.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We've all been told "it's not polite to stare." But with the recent explosion of tattoos and body art on anybody and everybody, I'm wondering if that's still the case.

Since most of the painted ladies (and men) have put lots of money into their backs, arms, calves, ankles, etc., is it now rude not to stare? If I felt that strongly about something that I would invest money and endure significant pain to display it on my body, I'd feel bad if people didn't spend time examining me closely.

GENTLE READER: Your reasoning troubles Miss Manners. If you had put huge amounts of money and endured great pain to have a hip replacement, would that make it polite for people to stare at that area of your body?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I received an invitation seven days before a wedding. With it was a request for money to help pay for the honeymoon in Bali. I barely know the person.

GENTLE READER: And you are not moved to want to send the couple on an expensive trip? How can you be so hard-hearted?

Miss Manners can only hope that this is because you have worthier outlets for philanthropy.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)