ment. "Aunt Selina," I said, "I am going down tomorrow
night to have supper with him. He wants me to become a leader in one of
the settlement clubs. It would take only one night a week, he says----"

My aunt was so affected by the announcement that I had to run and fetch
her smelling salts. "Oh, oh, down into that awful tenement house
district? Down among those dreadful people? Indeed, you shan't go. If
you do, I shall never allow you to come back! Think of the diseases you
might spread!"

And she carried on so hysterically that, after a while, I gave in and
promised I would not go--not for a while, anyhow.

"Why aren't you like other boys of your class?" she demanded. "Why
aren't you content to make the best of things and be satisfied with the
splendid opportunities you have?"

"That's just what I'm trying to do, Aunt Selina," I told her. "Trying to
make the best--the really best of everything that comes into my life!"

But she was unimpressed, and went off sobbing to bed.

X

THE RULES OF THE GAME

I became rather friendly with that near-sighted junior. He was so
genial, good-hearted, apologetic a chap that I could not harbor any
resentment against him for the events which took place at his fraternity
house. They were not his fault, anyhow.

His name was Trevelyan, and he came from one of the oldest families in
New York; one of the wealthiest, too. At college he was considered
somewhat of a fool, his never-failing good nature giving justification
for the opinion. I don't think that, since that first embarrassing
luncheon, I have never seen him unhappy--and even then it was on my
account he was discontented, not on his own. And outside of college he
must have been respected with all the awe which New Yorkers accord to
the Sons of the American Revolution and five or six million dollars. But
he was the least lofty, least snobbish man that I have ever known. Most
of his college friends thought he was too much of a fool to play the
snob; I thought he was too much of a gentleman.

He came to dinner at my aunt's apartment after he had known me for about
a month. I do not know who of us was the more proud, my aunt or I--for
to me the idea of having a junior and a member of one of the most
powerful fraternities visiting at my home was quite as much of a marvel
as my aunt seemed to feel it, that a member of the Trevelyan family--the
Trevelyan's of Fifth avenue and Sixty-fourth street, don't you
know--should