Every arrangement is made for dancing. A fine orchestra is provided, and is placed so that it may consume as little space as possible. A row of chairs placed around the room, and tied in couples with pocket-handkerchiefs, denotes that "The German" is to be danced during the course of the evening. There is very little dancing, however, of any kind, before midnight, the intervening time being taken up with the arrivals of guests and promenading. About midnight the supper room is thrown open, and there is a rush for the tables, which are loaded with every delicacy that money can buy. The New York physicians ought to be devoutly thankful for these suppers. They bring them many a fee. The servants are all French, and are clad in black swallow-tail coats and pants, with immaculate white vests, cravats and gloves. They are as active as a set of monkeys, and are capital hands at anticipating your wants. Sometimes the refreshments are served in the parlors, and are handed to the guests by the servants. The richest and costliest of wines flow freely. At a certain entertainment given not long since, 500 bottles of champagne, worth over four dollars each, were drunk. Some young men make a habit of abstaining carefully during the day, in order to be the better prepared to drink at night. The ladies drink almost as heavily as the men, and some of them could easily drink their partners under the table. After supper the dancing begins in earnest. If The German is danced it generally consumes the greater part of the evening. I shall not undertake to describe it here. It is a great mystery, and those who understand it appear to have exhausted in mastering it their capacity for understanding anything else. It is a dance in which the greatest freedom is permitted, and in which liberties are taken and encouraged, which would be resented under other circumstances. The figures really depend upon the leader of the dance, who can set such as he chooses, or devise them, if he has wit enough. All the rest are compelled to follow his example. The dance is thoroughly suited to the society we are considering, and owes its popularity to the liberties, to use no stronger term, it permits. [Picture: THE GERMAN] The _toilettes_ of the persons present are magnificent. The ladies are very queens in their gorgeousness. They make their trails so long that half the men are in mortal dread of breaking their necks over them; and having gone to such expense for dry goods in this quarter, they display the greatest economy about the neck and bust. They may be in "full dress" as to the lower parts of their bodies, but they are fearfully undressed from the head to the waist.