are expected, or think they are expected,
to give balls.

3d. Good-natured, amusement-loving married folk, with money and without
grown children.

4th. Benevolent grandfathers, dowagers and aunts.

5th. The most unlikely people.

And how, where and when are these various dance-givers' gifts bestowed?
The "how" is the easiest thing possible if the lady about to give the
dance is of established position in society. Her set of friends and
acquaintances is numerous, even to embarrassment. All the people whose
dinners or drums or dances she goes to must of course be asked: a dance
for a dance is a rule as obligatory as that of "cutlet for cutlet" (as a
matter-of-fact old lady of the world phrased it) is in dinner-giving
circles. At least as many young ladies as she can do with are sure to be
supplied by this means; while as for men, there are all the host of
bachelors to resort to who at the beginning of the season have left
their visiting-cards at her door, thereby intimating, "I am in town, and
ready to be asked to any entertainment you may happen to get up, and
here is my address." But if our intending hostess is a new-comer in
London, and has not yet picked up a sufficiency of town-acquaintances,
or if those whom she has are not altogether the style of folk she wishes
to invite, a different course of procedure has to be adopted. It may be
taken as an axiom that there are always plenty of people in society who
are ready to go anywhere (within recognized limits) to a ball, provided
that some lady of acknowledged experience in such matters will stand
sponsor for its probable goodness. So our hostess betakes herself to the
half dozen or dozen of her lady friends who are possessed of the most
extended and desirable sets of acquaintances, and, diplomatically
interesting them in her design, leaves with each of them, for
distribution at discretion, a little pack of cards of invitation. And
next day young Jones, coming home to his bachelor lodgings in St.
James's, find on his table the conventional oblong card:

_Mr. Jones_

Mrs. Smythe

At home,

_Tuesday, May 6th, 1873

150 Queen's Gate. Dancing._

R.S.V.P.

Knowing that he has not the pleasure of Mrs. Smythe's acquaintance, he
turns to the back of the card, and reading there (just the sort of thing
he had expected to find) the endorsement, "With Lady Fitzbattleaxe's
compliments," he at once grasps the situation, and sends off a note to
1