It is many a long year since I saw the inside of a ballroom, but by all accounts very much the same change has come over the spirit of ball-giving as of dinner-giving. Here again the "Emulous Ostentation" which I have described is the enemy. When I first grew up, there were infinitely more balls than now. From Easter till August there were at least two every night, and a hostess counted herself lucky if she had only one rival to contend with. Between 11 P.M. and 2 A.M. Grosvenor Place was blocked by the opposing streams of carriages going from Mayfair to Belgravia, and from Belgravia to Mayfair. There were three or four really great Houses--"Houses" with a capital H--such as Grosvenor House, Stafford House, Dudley House, and Montagu House--where a ball could scarcely help being an event--or, as Pennialinus would say, "a function." But, putting these on one side, the great mass of hostesses contrived to give excellent balls, where every one went and every one enjoyed themselves, with very little fuss and no ostentation. The drawing-room of an ordinary house in Belgravia or Grosvenor Square made a perfectly sufficient ballroom. A good floor, a good band, and plenty of light, were the only essentials of success. Decoration was represented by such quaint devices as pink muslin on the banisters, or green festoons dependent from the chandelier. A good supper was an additional merit; and, if the host produced his best champagne, he was held in just esteem by dancing men. But yet I well remember a cold supper at a ball which the present King and Queen attended, in 1881, and no one grumbled, though perhaps the young bloods thought it a little old-fashioned. The essence of a good ball was not expense or display or overwhelming preparation, but the certainty that you would meet your friends. Boys and girls danced, and married women looked on, or only stole a waltz when their juniors were at supper. In those days a ball was really a merry-making. Nowadays I gather from the _Morning Post_ that balls are comparatively rare events, but what they lack in frequency they make up in ostentation. As to the sums which the Heits and the Heims, the Le Beers and the De Porters, lavish on one night's entertainment I hear statistical accounts which not only outrage economy but stagger credibility. Here again the rushing flood of ill-gotten gold has overflowed its banks, and polluted the "crystal river of unreproved enjoyment."