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 of more importance than rooms.  With perfect music the success of a ball is more than three-quarters assured; without it, the most beautiful decorations and most delicious supper are as flat as a fallen souffle.  You cannot give a ball or a dance that is anything but a dull promenade if you have dull music.

To illustrate the importance that prominent hostesses attach to music:  a certain orchestra in New York to-day is forced to dash almost daily, not alone from party to party, but from city to city.  Time and again its leader has conducted the music at a noon wedding in Philadelphia, and a ball in Boston; or a dancing tea in Providence and a ball that evening in New York; because Boston, Providence, New York and Philadelphia hostesses all at the present moment clamor for this one especial orchestra.  The men have a little more respite than the leader since it is his “leading” that every one insists upon.  Tomorrow another orchestra will probably make the daily tour of various cities’ ballrooms.