The fact, which would have been balm to Sylvia’s vanity, had she ever had the 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 their substitute for a parlor—­and you’re likely to meet not only college freaks, but worse ones from goodness knows where.  There’s a beer-drinking old monster who goes there every Sunday to play the fiddle that you wouldn’t have speak to you on the street for anything in the world.  And the way they entertain!  My, in such a countrified way!  Some of the company go out into the kitchen to help Mrs. Marshall serve up the refreshments—­and everything homemade—­and they play charades, and nobody knows what else—­bean-bag, or spelling-down maybe—­”