This general term includes a variety of social entertainments, and suggests all degrees of formality, from the stately reception to the "surprise party." With a range so varied, classification is not readily made. Some features are always present: a host and hostess always receive; a guest always first pays his respects to his entertainers, and then mingles agreeably with the throng. He makes himself useful in any way that tact and courtesy suggest. Supper is served, usually the buffet collation. It is more formal, and less confusing, if the guests go to the dining-room—convenient numbers at a time—instead of being served in the parlors, as at a luncheon. On formal occasions professional readers and musicians are often engaged as entertainers. Sometimes the amusement is furnished by clever amateurs among the guests, who may read, sing, or whistle, or what not. In a circle where all are well acquainted, some of the pleasantest evening parties are those to the success of which each one contributes his mite, cheerfully singing in the chorus when nature has denied him a solo voice, and not allowing any dark jealousy of superior gifts to deprive the harmony of his one little note.

Invitations to these informal parties are cordial and personal in tone. If the guest is expected to make preparation, in costume or to fill some part on the programme, that fact is briefly stated. For practical suggestions, consult "Parlor Games," adding any novel features that you can devise. A hostess with original ideas for entertainments is always successful and popular. Elderly people as well as the young enjoy these parties; and they are a safe resource for mixed companies, when a form of entertainment must be chosen that will please all and offend none.

Children's parties, usually afternoon affairs, are often merely childish "good times"; but again, they are conducted in close imitation of an evening party for adults, and thus made a means of education in the social ceremonial. When sensibly managed, the children's party affords a fine opportunity for training the little people in polite manners.

When the children are almost grown up, but not "out," pleasant little parties for "the younger set" are given by the mothers, to accustom the "buds" to conventionalities, and prepare the dÉbutantes and their young brothers to take their place gracefully in the larger social world. These younger-set parties are like a grown-up party, except that they are conspicuously chaperoned, and all responsibility is assumed by the mothers and godmothers.

The two extreme phases of the evening party are the conventional ball, and the rural "sociable."

The special requirements for a ball are good music, and large well-ventilated rooms, from which all superfluous furniture has been removed. For music, an orchestra of four or six pieces may be sufficient. For space, we must make the best of what we have, if the ball is given at home. This is practicable only where the rooms are reasonably spacious. Nowadays, a ball in a private house is rare, for hotels, clubs, and first class caterers furnish charming ballrooms for rental to exclusive patrons.

But whether in her own house or in a hired ballroom, the hostess is for the time "at home"; and the general conduct of the ball is the same in both cases. Decorations, floral and otherwise, are important; and a supper, served either during the progress, or at the close of the dance—or both—is an indispensable feature.

The guests arrive at the hour designated, not earlier than nine o'clock. The hostess is stationed at some point near the entrance of the drawing-room, where she remains during the evening to receive the guests, who must pay their respects to her, first of all. A gentleman will also lose no time in finding his host, and paying him the courtesy of a deferential greeting.

As the hostess cannot delegate her special duty of receiving, she has usually several aids, young matrons, who keep a watchful eye upon the dancing throng, and see to it that partners are not lacking for those who might otherwise be overlooked; and in any way that the emergency may suggest, or tact devise, they radiate the hospitality from its centre—the hostess.

A gentleman in American society does not ask a lady to dance until he has been introduced to her. He may seek an introduction for this purpose, or the hostess may request him to be introduced. In either case, the lady and the gentleman both cheerfully acquiesce. A lady usually accepts the invitation to dance, unless the dance is already engaged. She should be careful to inspect her tablets; and not promise the same dance to two different partners, an awkward accident that sometimes happens to a heedless belle. After a dance, a gentleman promenades with his partner, chats with her for awhile, and, finally, with a graceful bow, leaves her once more in the care of her chaperone.

If a man has made an engagement to take a particular lady out to supper, he must not forget himself and linger talking to another lady until supper is fairly announced, since etiquette then requires him to take out the lady with whom he is at the moment talking. He should seek the one he has chosen, some moments before, and leave the other lady free to receive other invitations to supper.

Any gentleman who observes a lady who is not being served with refreshments, should courteously offer to bring her something. If he is a total stranger he will attempt no conversation beyond the civilities of the case; but these he will cordially though unobtrusively offer. The young man who does these little things with the gentle grace of a knight errant, may not know that he is simply charming, from a woman's standpoint; but the fact remains.

A ball, proper, is a strictly formal affair. A dancing party, while observing similar regulations on the dancing floor, may be, in the social intervals between dances, as informal as a village "sociable." That is to say, as informal as the sociable ever ought to be; possibly not as informal as the sociable sometimes is. People who have "grown up" together, as villagers often have, are apt to consider a life-long acquaintance the proper basis for unlimited off-hand familiarity. To a certain extent, and in a certain sense, such acquaintance, being second in intimacy only to near relationship, does warrant a cordial and trustful informality. The cautious reserve that marks one's conduct toward a recent acquaintance might justly be resented by a tried and trusted friend of one's youth. But even relationship does not warrant undignified behavior, or rude liberties of speech or action. The boy and girl who went to school together grow up to be the young man and woman of society; and while the memory of school days is a bond of hearty friendliness between them, it is not necessary that they should evince their mutual regard by a free-and-easy demeanor.

Country sociables, attended largely by the younger members of families long acquainted and associated, are apt to be rather rollicking, not to say "rough and tumble," affairs, where practical jokes and unmerciful "guying" are the characteristic wit, and such smart tricks as bumping an unsuspecting comrade's head against the wall are applauded with shrieks of admiring laughter. The onlookers may be excused for their tacit countenance of the rudeness, since some element of drollery—that might have been wit, under better conditions—compels a smile, in spite of a dignified disapproval of the performance. A young student, unused to such scenes, standing a little apart from such a group once remarked judicially to a lady near him, "I do not care for such dare-devil sociability." Nor would other young people cherish it as their ideal of a "good time" if they could learn how much more charming altogether it is to exchange the delicate courtesies that make up refined social companionship. The difference in social culture is what distinguishes the vulgar wag from the urban wit. The crude humor of the former, often marred by coarseness, is like ore in which the dross greatly out-weighs the pure metal. The brilliant mots of the latter, refined by the processes of culture, are like the gold nuggets separated from their base surroundings.

How to eliminate the "dare-devil" from the sociability of country life, without substituting an artificial stiffness, is the problem for every thoughtful and refined man and woman in rural circles. How to "be kindly affectioned one to another, in brotherly love, in honor preferring one another"—perhaps that would furnish the keynote of it all, alike for the citizen and the rustic.