ery qualification for an excellent
ball-guests, Gunter, American plants, pretty daughters have been
watching and waiting for years for an opportunity of giving it; and at
last, quite hopeless, at the end of the season, expend their funds in
a series of Greenwich banquets, which sometimes fortunately produce the
results expected from the more imposing festivity.

You see, therefore, that giving a ball is not that matter-of-course
affair you imagined; and that for Mrs. Guy Flouncey to give a ball and
succeed, completely, triumphantly to succeed, was a feat worthy of that
fine social general. Yet she did it. The means, like everything that is
great, were simple. She induced her noble friend to ask her guests. Her
noble friend canvassed for her as if it were a county election of the
good old days, when the representation of a shire was the certain
avenue to a peerage, instead of being, as it is now, the high road to a
poor-law commissionership.

Many were very glad to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Guy Flouncey; many
only wanted an excuse to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Guy Flouncey;
they went to her party because they were asked by their dear friend,
Lady Kingcastle. As for the potentates, there is no disguise on these
subjects among them. They went to Mrs. Guy Flouncey's ball because one
who was their equal, not only in rank, but in social influence, had
requested it as a personal favour, she herself, when the occasion
offered, being equally ready to advance their wishes. The fact was, that
affairs were ripe for the recognition of Mrs. Guy Flouncey as a member
of the social body. Circumstances had been long maturing. The Guy
Flounceys, who, in the course of their preparatory career, had hopped
from Park Crescent to Portman Square, had now perched upon their
'splendid mansion' in Belgrave Square. Their dinners were renowned. Mrs.
Guy Flouncey was seen at all the 'best balls,' and was always surrounded
by the 'best men.' Though a flirt and a pretty woman, she was a discreet
parvenue, who did not entrap the affections of noble husbands. Above
all, she was the friend of Lady Kingcastle, who called her and her
husband 'those good Guy Flounceys.'

The ball was given; you could not pass through Belgrave Square that
night. The list was published; it formed two columns of the Morning
Post. Lady Kingcastle was honoured by the friendship of a royal duchess.
She put the friendship to the proof, and her royal highness was seen at
M