As she grew older, and her group with her, nothing changed; she was a wallflower. The other girls were all busy with important little appointments—“dates” they called them—Elsie had none. With the liveliest eagerness the others talked patteringly about things that were meaningless to her; and when she tried to talk that way, too, she failed shamefully. She tried to laugh with them, and as loudly as they did, when she had no idea what they were laughing about; and for a long time she failed to understand that usually they were laughing about nothing. On summer evenings the boys and girls clustered on other verandas, not hers; and, sitting alone, she would hear the distant frolicking and drifts of song. At dances for her sixteen and seventeen-year-old contemporaries, everything was as it had been when she was twelve. Even when her mother, guessing a little of the truth, tried to help her, and, in spite of failing health, worked hard at “entertaining” for Elsie, the entertaining failed of its object;—Elsie was not made “popular.” “_Why_ not?” she had passionately asked herself a thousand times. “_Why_ do they despise me so?” Yet she knew that they did not even despise her. At times they did despise one of their group, usually a girl; for it seems to be almost a necessity, in an intimate circle of young people, that from time to time there shall be a member whom the rest may privately denounce, and in gatherings vent their wit upon more or less openly. During the greater part of her seventeenth year the dashing Mamie Ford had been in this unfortunate position without any obvious cause. The others were constantly busy “talking” about her, finding new faults or absurdities in her; snubbing her and playing derisive practical jokes upon her—for it is true that youth is cruel; self-interest takes up so much room. Elsie envied her, for at least Mamie was in the thick of things; and the centre of the stew. That was better than being a mere left-outer, Elsie thought; and Mamie fought, too, and had her own small faction, whereas a left-outer has nothing to fight except the vacancy in which she dwells—a dreary battling. Mamie’s unpopularity passed, for no better reason than it had arrived;—she was now, at nineteen, the very queen of the roost, and Elsie, wondering why, could only conclude that it was because Mamie made so much noise. Elsie had long ago perceived that, of the girls she knew, those who made the loudest and most frequent noises signifying excitement and hilarity were the ones about whom the boys and, consequently, the other girls, most busily grouped themselves. Naturally, the simple males went where vivacious sound and gesture promised merriment; and of course, too, a crowd naturally gathers where something seems to be happening. So far as Elsie could see, the whole art of general social intercourse seemed to rest on an ability to make something appear to be happening where nothing really was happening.