OF THE WISE FLEDGLINGS=

If a number of young girls and young men come together--better yet, if
they go everywhere together, always sit in a flock, always go to supper
together, always dance with one another--they not only have a good time
but they are sure to be popular with drifting odd men also. If a man knows
that having asked a girl to dance, one of her group will inevitably "cut
in," he is eager to dance with her. Or if he can take her "to the others"
when they have danced long enough, he is not only delighted to be with her
for a while but to sit with her "and the others" off and on throughout
that and every other evening, because since there are always "some of them
together" he can go again the moment he chooses.

Certain groups of clever girls sit in precisely the same place in a
ballroom, to the right of the door, or the left, or in a corner. One might
almost say they form a little club; they dance as much as they like, but
come back "home" between whiles. They all go to supper together, and
whether individuals have partners or not is scarcely noticeable, nor even
known by themselves.

No young girl, unless she is a marked favorite, should ever go to a ball
alone. If her especial "flock" has not as yet been systematized, she must
go to a dinner before every dance, so as to go, and stay, with a group. If
she is not asked to dinner, her mother must give one for her; or she must
have at least one dependable beau--or better, two--who will wait for her
and look out for her.

=MAID GOES WITH HER=

A young girl who goes to a ball without a chaperon (meaning of course a
private ball), takes a maid with her who sits in the dressing-room the
entire evening. Not only is it thought proper to have a maid waiting, but
nothing can add more to the panic of a partnerless girl than to feel she
has not even a means of escape by going home; she can always call a taxi
as long as her maid is with her, and go. Otherwise she either has to stay
in the ballroom or sit forlorn among the visiting maids in the
dressing-room.

=WHAT MAKES A YOUNG GIRL A BALLROOM SUCCESS=

Much of the above is so pessimistic one might suppose that a ballroom is
always a chamber of torture and the young girl taken as an example above,
a very drab and distorted caricature of what "a real young girl" should be
and is. But remember, the young girl who is a "belle of the ballroom"
needs no advice on how to manage a happy situation; no thought spent