change their shoes.

The gentlemens' dressing-room should also be presided over by an
attendant supplied with the same duplicate system of tickets and ready
to render any called-for assistance.

Programs with the order of the dances and blanks for recording
engagements for each, should be distributed to the guests as they
enter the ball-room. To each card should be attached a small pencil.

Concerning the Music.

Good music is a prime necessity. An orchestra, even if it must be a
small one, is needful for a ball. Four pieces are enough: violin,
piano, violincello, or harp, and cornet. If more are desired, leave
the choice to the leader, with whom the selections will have been
carefully talked over beforehand, and who must be furnished with a
copy of the dancing program.

The musicians should be concealed back of a group of flowering shrubs
at the end of the hallway, or some other convenient nook or corner. If
there should be a balcony, a shady bower can be constructed for them
there, and by taking out the window frame they will be heard to
perfection.

Never, even at a "small and early," depend, for the pianist, upon
volunteer service from among the guests. In the first place, it is a
tiresome and unwillingly performed service, and in the second, there
are few amateurs who play dance-music with sufficient correctness to
render dancing after their music a pleasure.

Refreshments.

At a ball elaborate refreshments are to be expected, and are usually
served all the evening from a long table loaded with silver and glass
and softly but brilliantly illuminated. No one is expected to sit down
at such a supper, but the guests as they come in, a few at a time, are
served by waiters in attendance.

Both hot and cold dishes are to be had; and substantial food, as well
as all manner of sweets, should be furnished for an amusement that
begets a most unromantic hunger. Small game birds may be served cold;
the larger fowl hot. Boned turkey (cold) is especially liked. Game
_pates_, oysters, cooked or raw, all manner of truffled dishes, and a
variety of salads are served, while fruits, ices, confections, cakes,
and so on, _ad infinitum_, do fitly furnish forth the feast.

If the German is to finish the evening, a separate, hot supper should
be served at its close, and the all-night supper confined more
exclusively to cold dishes, with the exception of hot drinks.

In case of a very spacious mansion, the hostess may, if