did possess more of that enviable bearing than most
boys at the age of sixteen--he had come to realize that there was such a
thing as a social difference between men whose Maker created them equal.

This fact impressed him more forcibly since he found that some of his
companions with whom he had grown up, played, and studied side by side
in school for years, were now apparently beginning to ignore him.

"Is there any reason for this?" he often asked himself. "Have they
suddenly accomplished some great thing, or done some heroic deed which
gives them distinction? Or is the trouble with me? If so, where does it
lie? Surely I stood among the very first in my class at school--far
ahead of Matthew De Vere and his sister, and some of the others who
treat me so coolly. I wonder if clerking in a store is disgraceful? I
always thought it an honorable thing to be a merchant. Merchants are
everywhere among our most influential men.

"I have always kept good company," he reflected, "and never had trouble
with any of the boys, except Matthew De Vere, just before I left school,
and that wasn't my fault. I taught him a lesson, though, that I think he
will remember, and ever since then he has been trying to pay me for it
by turning the girls and boys against me; but only a few of them have
shown any change.

"I know my father and mother do not belong to the same 'set' as theirs,
but that is no reason why they should slight me, and _it shall not be_.
I will work my way up and make them acknowledge me if it takes years to
do it. But as long as Nellie Dutton and some others are friendly, I
don't care so much."

When Fred heard of the party to be given by Grace Bernard, he was in a
feverish state of suspense, wondering whether he would be invited or
not. He felt that this was a crisis with him.

He had left school, but he argued that if he were only fortunate enough
to attend this party, he would be placed on a good social footing, one
that he could maintain as he gradually built himself up in the store;
but should luck now go against him, he would be practically separated
from many of his school companions, and separation meant disaster to a
certain friendship that he prized more highly than all the rest, and
which, as he believed, it would not be well to leave uncultivated even
for a short time.

"Hello, Fred, got your invitation yet?" asked Dave, a few days before
that fixed upon for the party.

"No, I haven't seen anything of