These two branches of society had their different "sets." That of the "villagers" was made up, as is usually the case, by the drawing together of the well to do, the influential, and the better educated citizens, while the others were left to form such social connections as their opportunities afforded. Fred Worthington's parents mingled with the latter class, for they were far from rich. His father was a shoemaker, and earned only a small sum weekly; but through the excellent management of his mother, they had a neat and comfortable home. During Fred's younger days he thought nothing of these dividing lines of society; but as he had grown to be, as he considered, a young man--and, indeed, he really 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.