lar 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--