Is there any misery like the misery of a girl who is dying to dance, who loves the exercise for its own sake, and who has to sit out on a bench, her feet impatiently tapping the floor, and her little heart ready to break with disappointment, while she sees married women, who ought to know better, and who ought never to dance at all as long as a girl is sitting out, prancing all about the place and caring nothing for the poor young things whose day it is? As long as they enjoy themselves, that is quite enough for them. The watchful hostess will have none of these engaging little ways at her dances: the girls are provided for first, the matrons after; and as this would be impossible were introductions done away with, I would impress upon my readers to cling to this old fashion, and to see that the girls enjoy themselves, no matter who else do not. Except as chaperons married women are out of place in the ballroom, and should not be encouraged to come there; if they do their duty by their homes, their husbands, and their children, they could have neither time nor inclination for such a pursuit. When my own daughter ‘came out’ the other day, we had about 125 people to a dance in Watford, and it cost us just under 50_l._ Because our house was too small to have any festivity in, we had to engage rooms, which cost about 5_l._; the supper cost about 25_l._, at 5_s._ a head, including soup, aërated waters, and waiters, and a certain amount of decoration for the approach, anterooms, &c. We had plenty of moss, plants, &c., which our own gardener arranged. The local band of three performers cost 3_l._ 3_s._, and the rest went for wine, programmes, and odds and ends generally. The dance was certainly most successful, and went off very well, and was quite as much as we could afford. Naturally I should have preferred much grander doings--a first-rate supper, the ‘Blue Hungarian’ band, or any other excellent one; but it would have been foolish to refuse to entertain at all because we could not manage these gorgeous details--details that were as much above our means as they would have been quite unnecessary in Watford. But the dance was successful, because the girls were pretty and the men pleasant, because old friends came down and rallied round us, and because we all saw the girls did not sit down once, that there was no flagging, and that all who could be introduced were made to know each other. I dare say there were plenty of people who wondered they did not have a gorgeous supper, but I do not care if they did, and I certainly am never going to precipitate myself head first into the Bankruptcy Court because someone else gives what, no doubt, they can well afford to do, but which I could not, and which, were I to do, I should soon come utterly to an end.