Part 8

A public ball begins promptly at the time mentioned in the announcement.

INVITATIONS. These are issued from ten to twenty days before the ball, and should be answered immediately.

For an impromptu dance, they may be issued within a few days of the affair.

These invitations should be engraved. As a general rule, it is not now customary to put on them the letters R. S. V. P.

But when an engraved invitation is posted, two envelopes are used, the inner one bearing the person's name only and unsealed, and the outer bearing both the name and address and sealed.

If the ball has any peculiar feature, as a masquerade or costume, the invitation should have some words to that effect in the lower left hand corner--as, Costume of the XVIIth Century, Bal Masque, or Bal Poudre.

INVITATIONS ASKED FOR STRANGERS. If a hostess receives a request from friends for invitations for friends of theirs, she can properly refuse all such requests, and no friend should feel aggrieved at a refusal for what she has no right to ask and which the hostess is under no obligation to give. If the hostess chooses to grant the request, well and good.

She would naturally do so when the request is for a near relative, or the betrothed of the one making the request.

A man should never ask for an invitation to a ball for another person, except for his fiancee or a near relative.

A woman may ask for an invitation for her fiance, a brother, or a male friend of long standing, or for a visiting friend. She should take care that she does not ask it for some one known to the hostess and whom the latter does not desire to invite. No offense should be felt at a refusal save, possibly, in the case of a brother, sister, or fiance.

INVITATIONS GIVEN BY A NEWCOMER. When a newcomer in a neighborhood desires to give a ball but has no visiting list, it is allowable for her to borrow the visiting list of some friend. The friend, however, arranges that in each envelope is placed a calling-card of her own, so that the invited ones may know that she is acting as sponsor for the newcomer.

INVITATIONS ANSWERED. Every invitation should be answered as soon as possible, and in the third person if the invitation was in the third person. The answer should be sent to the party requesting the pleasure, even if many names are on the invitation.

When a subscriber to a subscription ball invites a friend who is a non-subscriber, she encloses her card in the envelope, and the invited friend sends the answer to the subscriber sending the invitation.

INTRODUCTIONS. When a man is introduced to a woman at a ball, he should ask her for a dance.

MEN AT. Courtesy toward his hostess and consideration for his friends demands that a man who can dance should do so.

To accept an invitation to a ball and then refuse to dance shows that a man is lacking in good breeding.

A man finding few friends at a ball should ask some friend, or the hostess, to introduce him to some women whom he can invite to dance.

It is an act of discourtesy for a man not to request a dance of a woman to whom he has been introduced.

A man escorting a woman to a ball should agree where to meet her after they have each left their wraps at the dressing-rooms. It may be at the foot of the stairway or near the ball-room door.

It is now no longer customary for the man and woman to enter arm in arm, but for the woman to precede the man, and together they greet the hostess. It is for the hostess to merely bow or to shake hands, and the guests follow her lead.

A man should see that his companion's chaperone is comfortably seated, and then ask his companion for a couple of dances, and, with her permission, introduce other young men, who should ask her to dance. Such permission is not usually asked if the man is her fiance, a near relative, or an old friend.

It is strictly the woman's prerogative to decide to retire, and no man should urge or hint to a woman to retire earlier than she wishes.

MEN--CARRIAGE. A man asking a woman to accompany him to a ball should call in a carriage for her and her chaperone.

MEN--DRESS. Men wear full evening dress in summer or winter, city and town.

Gloves of white dressed kid should be worn at all balls.

NEWCOMERS. See BALLS-INVITATIONS GIVEN BY NEWCOMERS.

PATRONESSES. See PUBLIC BALLS--PATRONESSES.

TIPPING SERVANTS. Only at public balls is it customary to give a tip to the men and women in charge of the cloak-room.