Miss Manners cannot promise that they will develop the same aesthetic and sentimental attachment to the set that you seem to have. The use of fine china is rare now, especially when it should not be subjected to a dishwasher -- as yours, with its gold trim, should not.

MISS MANNERS by Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin DEAR MISS MANNERS: Fifty years ago, when my father was stationed in Vietnam, he sent the military exchange catalog to my mother back home.