oom, get hats and wraps, and are off in
a fast hansom without a word to anybody. It's all very well for the
young lady, who has from day to day no calls upon her time but those of
her own pleasures and engagements, to stay late at any particularly
pleasant dance. She may collapse to her heart's content next morning,
and still be ready again by nightfall for another round of excitements;
but with her partners things are very different, unless, indeed, they
are officers in the Household Brigade. The young barrister or banker, or
what not, who is frivolous enough to like combining some nights of
dancing in the season with hard days of work, soon finds that the only
way of gratifying both tastes is to partake sparingly, in point of
hours, of the former one; so he comforts himself with the reflection
that there are as good balls in the season as ever came out of it, and
resolutely says good-night to the most festive scenes by 2 A. M. at
latest. By that time, indeed, the best of a private ball is very
commonly over. No doubt there are delicious and long-to-be-remembered
opportunities now and then seizable by staying later. Strauss'
world-known "Blue Danube" waltz with an appreciative partner, and the
rare luxury of ample dancing-space in an emptying room, is one such. But
when the minute-hand of the hall-clock is approaching the third of the
small hours, the endurance of the most indulgent and enduring of matrons
is apt to get exhausted, and she carries off her brood, determined, like
everybody else, not to be the last to go. In the tea-room she will get a
strengthening draught of some clear soup or other in a tea-cup, and
meanwhile John Thomas will have called the carriage to the door.

Next morning the _Morning Post_ will serve up to its (mostly lady)
readers a full list of the names of those who were at last night's
balls, under the head of "Fashionable Entertainments." The _Post_ is the
one daily paper that systematically goes in for this kind of news,
publishing every day during the season a long list of coming fixtures,
as well as catalogues of the guests attending them. And I fear it must
be owned that there are people not a few who take delight in having
their parties and appearances chronicled in this small-beer manner, and
that there are several grains of truth contained in the good-humoredly
sarcastic lines in which that clever rhymer "C.S.C," parodying the
_Proverbial Philosophy_ of Mr. Tupper, gives worldly advice