No. 2 · Monday, April 10, 1911

The Dashwood Ball

We said we did not expect to see Mr. Ainsley in a ballroom this spring. We were wrong, and we have rarely enjoyed being wrong so much.

The Dashwoods opened their house on East 37th Street on Saturday night, and everyone who matters came, along with a great many who only believe they do. The flowers were white and very numerous. The supper was late and very good. The terrace was cold, which did not keep everyone off it.

Mrs. Ainsley came, in black, not seven weeks a widow, and received condolences from a high-backed chair near the fire. A widow at a ball in her first year is a thing this city has not seen in some time, and the city will discuss it for longer than the ball. We suspect the chair was placed there for her. She was seen to speak, very briefly, with a young lady she had never been introduced to. We do not know what was said. Mrs. Ainsley does not say things by accident.

The elder Miss S. wore blue silk, in this season’s color before most of the room had heard of it, and danced with the middle Ainsley son, whose wife had the good sense to stay at home with the baby. She was positioned, for most of the evening, wherever the heir to the Ainsley concern would have to pass. It was very well done. We have seen generals do worse.

The younger Miss S. danced twice: once with her cousin, and once with a widower of forty. Her gown was very nearly last season's.

The heir arrived late. The pitch of the room dropped by a full tone when he came through the door, and every mother present took a breath at once. Some said it was mourning that kept him from the floor. Others said it was strategy. He did not dance with the elder Miss S. He did not dance with anyone. He was seen to accept a glass of champagne and was not seen to drink it.

Shortly afterward he went out onto the terrace.

For some time after that, neither the heir nor the younger Miss S. could be found in the ballroom. We do not suggest that they were in the same place. We observe only that the Dashwoods' terrace is not large, and that the night was cold enough to send anyone sensible back indoors.

A footman at the terrace door swears he heard the heir laugh. We had not known that he could. When the heir came back in, he handed the footman his glass of champagne, as full as when he took it.

We are told the elder Miss S. was all charm on the drive home. We are told that the younger Miss S. said nothing at all. In that family, we suspect, the second is the more interesting report.

A gentleman in mourning does not pay calls. He may, however, leave a card. We shall be watching the hall tables of West 54th Street with the greatest attention.

A Caller

For the modern reader

How a Gilded Age society ball worked

A private ball in 1911 New York was given in the family’s own house, often in a ballroom built for the purpose, and it ran late. Guests came on from dinner or the opera, so a ball rarely filled before eleven. Supper was served at about midnight.

After supper came the cotillion, also called the german: a long run of set figures, led by a chosen couple, in which partners were matched by favors, small presents handed out on the floor. The rest of the night belonged mostly to the waltz and the two-step.

A young woman came with a chaperone, usually her mother, and was taken back to her after each dance. Dances were promised in advance, often on a small dance card. A girl who sat out dance after dance was noticed. So was any girl who left the ballroom without her chaperone, even for a cold terrace.

In The Devil’s Asking Price, Catherine Sidney sits out most of the Dashwood ball. Then she goes out onto the terrace, and a man in the dark says something he never meant anyone to hear.

By Astoria Bane, writing as A Caller · 12 November 2026 · 3 min read