t has nothing to "go with it," any more than he cares for butter with no
bread to spread it on. Beauty _and_ wit, _and_ heart, _and_ other
qualifications or attributes is another matter altogether.

A gift of more value than beauty, is charm, which in a measure is another
word for sympathy, or the power to put yourself in the place of others; to
be interested in whatever interests them, so as to be pleasing to them, if
possible, but not to occupy your thoughts in futilely wondering what they
think about you.

Would you know the secret of popularity? It is unconsciousness of self,
altruistic interest, and inward kindliness, outwardly expressed in good
manners.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CHAPERON AND OTHER CONVENTIONS

=A GLOOMY WORD=

Of course there are chaperons and chaperons! But it must be said that the
very word has a repellent schoolteacherish sound. One pictures
instinctively a humorless tyrant whose "correct" manner plainly reveals
her true purpose, which is to take the joy out of life. That she can
be--and often is--a perfectly human and sympathetic person, whose
unselfish desire is merely to smooth the path of one who is the darling of
her heart, in nothing alters the feeling of gloom that settles upon the
spirit of youth at the mention of the very word "chaperon."

=FREEDOM OF THE CHAPERONED=

As a matter of fact the only young girl who is really "free," is she whose
chaperon is never very far away. She need give conventionality very little
thought, and not bother about her P's and Q's at all, because her chaperon
is always a strong and protective defense; but a young girl who is
unprotected by a chaperon is in the position precisely of an unarmed
traveler walking alone among wolves--his only defense is in not attracting
their notice.

To be sure the time has gone by when the presence of an elderly lady is
indispensable to every gathering of young people. Young girls for whose
sole benefit and protection the chaperon exists (she does not exist for
her own pleasure, youthful opinion to the contrary notwithstanding), have
infinitely greater freedom from her surveillance than had those of other
days, and the typical chaperon is seldom seen with any but very young
girls, too young to have married friends. Otherwise a young married woman,
a bride perhaps scarcely out of her teens, is, on all ordinary occasions,
a perfectly suitable chaperon, especially if her husband is present. A
very young married wom