been feminine and sweet--and I've
never been particularly feminine, nor particularly sweet."

Barry followed up her defense. "I guess Mary knows how to take care of
herself, Gordon."

"No woman knows how to take care of herself," Gordon was obstinate,
"when it comes to the fight with economic conditions. I should hate to
think of Constance trying to earn a living."

"Gordon, dear," Constance's voice appealed, "I couldn't--but Mary
can--only I hate to see her do it."

"I don't," said Grace, stoutly. "I envy her."

Aunt Frances fixed her daughter with a stern eye. "Don't encourage her
in her foolishness, Grace," she said; "each of you should marry and
settle down with some nice man."

"But what man, mother?" Grace, leaning forward, put the question, with
an irritating air of doubt.

"There are a half dozen of them waiting."

"Nice boys! But a man. Find me one, mother, and I'll marry him."

"The trouble with you and Mary," Porter informed her, "is that you
don't want a man. You want a hero."

Grace nodded. "With a helmet and plume, and riding on a steed--that's
my dream--but mother refuses to let me wander in Arcady where such
knights are found."

"I think," Constance remarked happily, "that now and then they are
found in every-day life, only you and Mary won't recognize them."

From the other side her husband smiled at her. "She thinks I'm one,"
he said, and his fine young face was suffused by faint color. "She
thinks I'm one. I hope none of you will ever undeceive her."

Under the table Leila's little hand was slipped into Barry's big one.
She could not proclaim to the world that she had found her knight, and
loved him.

Aunt Frances, very stiff and straight in her jetted dinner gown,
resumed, "I wish it were possible to give girls a dose of common sense,
as you give them cough syrup."

"_Mother!_"

But Aunt Frances, mounted on her grievance, rode it through the salad
course. She had wanted Grace to marry--her beauty and her family had
entitled her to an excellent match. But Grace was single still,
holding her own against all her mother's arguments, maintaining in this
one thing her right to independent action.

Isabelle, straining her ears to hear what it was all about, asked Mary,
late that night, "What upset Frances at dinner?"

Mary told her.

"Do you think I'm wrong, Aunt Isabelle?" she asked.

The gentle lady sighed, "If you feel that it is right, it must be right
for you.