When you are quite ready, and are pulling and smoothing your gloves while waiting for the chaperon to start your party, you catch a glimpse of something, as the door opens for an instant, which extends from the door all along the dimly lighted passage to the very stairs beyond--something which looks like a great black bank with gleaming white patches here and there. This is made up of young men, whose collars are stiff and straight. When your chaperon stalks forth with a sort of flourish, several members of the black and white bank come forward to meet your party, and the rest make inaudible comments upon your appearance, probably to the effect that you are "smooth." But all that you are sure of is that your escort offers you his arm with a smile and a stiff bow, that you walk nervously up the winding stairs, step into a dazzle of light, where members of the dance committee are running hither and thither with dance-cards and girls, and where patronesses are smiling, bowing, looking stately, holding their fans, and doing whatever patronesses usually do. Then the orchestra plays a promenade, to which a few impatient couples try to waltz, and you begin what you have talked about and thought about and dreamed about for a month. You notice when you have danced the first one with your brother's roommate, at whose special invitation you came, that as soon as he has taken you to your seat he rushes off like mad. In a moment he comes back again, bearing with him the young man who was pointed out to you at the concert as being down on your card for No. 2. While he is being presented, still another anxious-eyed man runs up and hurriedly snatches off your host. These are men who are "running" girls' cards. Now, while you and your new acquaintance are waiting for the music to begin, and are amiably agreeing that the concert was good, that the room is warm, that the light effects are pretty, you may steal another glance at your dance-card to make sure of this man's name. It is carefully written in ink on the pretty silk-and-leather-bound card which was handed to you on the way to the concert. All the numbers are filled and three extras. This is the way it was done: