She does not usually invite a lady with whom she may work on a
charitable committee, even though she may know her well, and like her. The
question as to whether an outsider may be invited is not a matter of a
hostess' own inclination so much as a question whether the "outsider"
would be agreeable to all the "insiders" who are coming. If the co-worker
is in everything a lady and a fitting ornament to society, the hostess
might very possibly ask her.

If the ball to be given is for a debutante, all the debutantes whose
mothers are on the "general visiting list" are asked as well as all young
dancing men in these same families. In other words the children of all
those whose names are on the general visiting list of a hostess are
selected to receive invitations, but the parents on whose standing the
daughters and sons are asked, are rarely invited.

_When a List is Borrowed_

A lady who has a debutante daughter, but who has not given any general
parties for years--or ever, and whose daughter, having been away at
boarding-school or abroad, has therefore very few acquaintances of her
own, must necessarily in sending out invitations to a ball take the list
of young girls and men from a friend or a member of her family. This of
course could only be done by a hostess whose position is unquestioned, but
having had no occasion to keep a young people's list, she has not the
least idea who the young people of the moment are, and takes a short-cut
as above. Otherwise she would send invitations to children of ten and
spinsters of forty, trusting to their being of suitable age.

To take a family or intimate friend's list is also important to the
unaccustomed hostess, because to leave out any of the younger set who
"belong" in the groups which are included, is not the way to make a party
a success. Those who don't find their friends go home, or stay and are
bored, and the whole party sags in consequence. So that if a hostess
knows the parents personally of, let us say, eighty per cent. of young
society, she can quite properly include the twenty per cent. she does not
know, so that the hundred per cent. can come together. In a small
community it is rather cruel to leave out any of the young people whose
friends are all invited. In a very great city on the other hand, an
habitual hostess does not ask any to her house whom she does not know, but
she can of course be as generous as she chooses in allowing young people
to have invitatio