he least knowledge of it, was that upon her appearance in the
Freshman class she had been the occasion of violent discussion and
almost of dissension in the councils of the two "best" fraternities.
Her beauty, her charm, and the rumors of her excellence in tennis had
made a flutter in the first fraternity meetings after the opening of
the autumn term. The younger members of both Sigma Beta and Alpha
Kappa counseled early and enthusiastic "rushing" of the new prize, but
the Juniors and Seniors, wise in their day and generation, brought
out a number of damning facts which would need to be taken into
consideration if Sylvia wore their pin.

There were, in both fraternities, daughters of other faculty families,
who were naturally called upon to furnish inside information. They
had been brought up from childhood on the tradition of the Marshalls'
hopeless queerness, and their collective statement of the Marshalls'
position ran somewhat as follows: "The only professors who have
anything to do with them are some of the jay young profs from the
West, with no families; the funny old La Rues--you know what a
hopeless dowd Madame La Rue is--and Professor Kennedy, and though he
comes from a swell family he's an awful freak himself. They live on a
farm, like farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that anybody
knows. They are never asked to be patrons of any swell college
functions. None of the faculty ladies with any social position ever
call on Mrs. Marshall--and no wonder. She doesn't keep any help, and
when the doorbell rings she's as apt to come running in from the
chicken house with rubber boots on, and a basket of eggs--and the
_queerest_ clothes! Like a costume out of a book; and they never have
anybody to wait on the table, just jump up and down themselves--you
can imagine what kind of a frat tea or banquet Sylvia would give in
such a home--and of course if we took her in, we couldn't very
well _tell_ her her family's so impossible we wouldn't want their
connection with the frat known--and the students who go there are a
perfect collection of all the jays and grinds and freaks in college.
It's enough to mark you one to be seen there--you meet all the crazy
guys you see in classes and never anywhere else--and of course that
wouldn't stop when Sylvia's frat sisters began going there. And their
house wouldn't do at _all_ to entertain in--it's queer--no rugs--dingy
old furniture--nothing but books everywhere, even in the