came home,
to appreciate being taken for what I am, not what I may or may not have
done. Since I have discovered myself to have a funny sort of feeling
about living on your money, it behooves me to get out and make what
money I need for myself--in view of the fact that I'm going to be
married quite soon. I am going to marry"--Norman rose and looked down at
his mother with something like a flicker of amusement in his eyes as he
exploded his final bombshell--"a fisherman's daughter. A poor but worthy
maiden," he finished with unexpected irony.

"Norman!" His mother's voice was a wail. "A common fisherman's
daughter? Oh, my son, my son."

She shed a few beautifully restrained tears.

"A common fisherman's daughter. Exactly," Norman drawled. "Terrible
thing, of course. Funny the fish scales on the family income never
trouble you."

Mrs. Gower glared at him through her glasses.

"Who is this--this woman?" she demanded.

"Dolly," Betty whispered under her breath.

"Miss Dolores Ferrara of Squitty Cove," Norman answered imperturbably.

"A foreigner besides. Great Heavens! Horace," Mrs. Gower appealed to her
husband, "have you no influence whatever with your son?"

"Mamma," Betty put in, "I assure you you are making a tremendous fuss
about nothing. I can tell you that Dolly Ferrara is really quite a nice
girl. _I_ think Norman is rather lucky."

"Thanks, Bet," Norman said promptly. "That's the first decent thing I've
heard in this discussion."

Mrs. Gower turned the battery of her indignant eyes on her daughter.

"You, I presume," she said spitefully, "will be thinking of marrying
some fisherman next?"

"If she did, Bessie," Gower observed harshly, "it would only be history
repeating itself."

Mrs. Gower flushed, paled a little, and reddened again. She glared--no
other word describes her expression--at her husband for an instant. Then
she took refuge behind her dignity.

"There is a downright streak of vulgarity in you, Horace," she said,
"which I am sorry to see crop out in my children."

"Thank you, mamma," Betty remarked evenly.

Mrs. Gower whirled on Norman.

"I wash my hands of you completely," she said imperiously. "I am ashamed
of you."

"I'd rather you'd be ashamed of me," Norman retorted, "than that I
should be ashamed of myself."

"And you, sir,"--he faced his father, speaking in a tone of formal
respect which did not conceal a palpable undercurrent of defiance--"you
also, I suppose, wash y