ers from the usual lunch table is that in front of the hostess is a
big silver tea-tray with full silver service for tea or cocoa or chocolate
or breakfast coffee, most often chocolate or cocoa and either tea or
coffee. At the host's end of the table there is perhaps a chafing
dish--that is, if the host fancies himself a cook!

A number of people whose establishments are not very large, have very
informal Sunday night suppers on their servants' Sundays out, and forage
for themselves. The table is left set, a cold dish of something and salad
are left in the icebox; the ingredients for one or two chafing dish
specialties are also left ready. At supper time a member of the family,
and possibly an intimate friend or two, carry the dishes to the table and
make hot toast on a toaster.

This kind of supper is, in fact as well as spirit, an indoor picnic;
thought to be the greatest fun by the Kindharts, but little appreciated by
the Gildings, which brings it down, with so many other social customs, to
a mere matter of personal taste.

CHAPTER XVII

BALLS AND DANCES

A ball is the only social function in America to which such qualifying
words as splendor and magnificence can with proper modesty of expression
be applied. Even the most elaborate wedding is not quite "a scene of
splendor and magnificence" no matter how luxurious the decorations or how
costly the dress of the bride and bridesmaids, because the majority of the
wedding guests do not complete the picture. A dinner may be lavish, a
dance may be beautiful, but a ball alone is prodigal, meaning, of course,
a private ball of greatest importance.

On rare occasions, a great ball is given in a private house, but since few
houses are big enough to provide dancing space for several hundred and
sit-down supper space for a greater number still, besides smoking-room,
dressing-room and sitting-about space, it would seem logical to describe a
typical ball as taking place in the ballroom suite built for the purpose
in nearly all hotels.

=A HOSTESS PREPARES TO GIVE A BALL=

The hostess who is not giving the ball in her own house goes first of all
to see the manager of the hotel (or of whatever suitable assembly rooms
there may be) and finds out which evenings are available. She then
telephones--probably from the manager's office--and engages the two best
orchestras for whichever evening both the orchestras and the ballroom are
at her disposal. Of the two, music is