Programs with the order of the dances and blanks for recording engagements for each, should be distributed to the guests as they enter the ball-room. To each card should be attached a small pencil.
Good music is a prime necessity. An orchestra, even if it must be a small one, is needful for a ball. Four pieces are enough: violin, piano, violincello, or harp, and cornet. If more are desired, leave the choice to the leader, with whom the selections will have been carefully talked over beforehand, and who must be furnished with a copy of the dancing program.
The musicians should be concealed back of a group of flowering shrubs at the end of the hallway, or some other convenient nook or corner. If there should be a balcony, a shady bower can be constructed for them there, and by taking out the window frame they will be heard to perfection.
Never, even at a “small and early,” depend, for the pianist, upon volunteer service from among the guests. In the first place, it is a tiresome and unwillingly performed service, and in the second, there are few amateurs who play dance-music with sufficient correctness to render dancing after their music a pleasure.
At a ball elaborate refreshments are to be expected, and are usually served all the evening from a long table loaded with silver and glass and softly but brilliantly illuminated. No one is expected to sit down at such a supper, but the guests as they come in, a few at a time, are served by waiters in attendance.
Both hot and cold dishes are to be had; and substantial food, as well as all manner of sweets, should be furnished for an amusement that begets a most unromantic hunger. Small game birds may be served cold; the larger fowl hot. Boned turkey (cold) is especially liked. Game _patés_, oysters, cooked or raw, all manner of truffled dishes, and a variety of salads are served, while fruits, ices, confections, cakes, and so on, _ad infinitum_, do fitly furnish forth the feast.
If the German is to finish the evening, a separate, hot supper should be served at its close, and the all-night supper confined more exclusively to cold dishes, with the exception of hot drinks.
In case of a very spacious mansion, the hostess may, if she prefer, keep the supper-room closed until half-past twelve, or one, when she will give the word. Her husband should lead the way to supper with some lady to be especially honored. The hostess should not go out herself until she sees that every lady has been properly escorted, save in cases where she is to accompany some very distinguished gentleman who is present. In this case she delegates her authority either to a grown son, some other relative, or to some gentleman especially appointed, who takes her place in seeing that there are no forgotten wall-flowers left to blush unseen.