olish. It has been a long time since you
took a meal with us. It will seem like old times again. Put down your
hat."

Dic refused emphatically, and Tom, taking up his own hat, said:--

"If Dic goes to the inn, I go with him. Mother's a damned old fool." I
wish I might have heard the undutiful son speak those blessed words!

Williams was delighted when Rita did not insist upon Dic's remaining,
but his delight died ignominiously when the girl with tears in her eyes
took Dic's hand before them all and said:--

"Come back to me soon, Dic. I will be waiting for you."

Our little girl is growing brave, but she trembles when she thinks of
the wrath to come.

Dinner was a failure. Mrs. Bays thought only of the note payable on
demand, and feared that her offensive conduct to Dic might cause its
instant maturity. If the note had been in her own hands under similar
circumstances, and if she had been in Dic's place, she well knew that
serious results would have followed. She judged Dic by herself, and
feared she had made a mistake.

There were but two modes of living in peace with this woman--even in
semi-peace. Domineer her coldly, selfishly, and cruelly as did Tom, and
she would be a worm; or submit to her domineering, be a worm yourself,
and she would be a tyrant. Those who insist on domineering others
usually have their way. The world is too good-natured and too lazy to
combat them. Fight them with their own weapons, and they become an easy
prey. Tom was his mother's own son. He domineered her, his father, and
Rita; but, like his mother, his domineering was inflicted only upon
those whose love for him made them unresisting.

But I have wandered from the dinner. Rita sat by Williams, but she did
not eat, and vouchsafed to him only such words as were absolutely
necessary to answer direct questions.

Williams was a handsome fellow, and many girls would have been glad to
answer his questions volubly. He, like Mrs. Bays, was of a domineering
nature, and clung to a purpose once formed with the combative tenacity
of a bull-dog or the cringing persistency of a hound. Success in all his
undertakings was his object, and he cared little about the means to
desired ends. Such a man usually attains his end; among other
consummations, he is apt to marry a rare, beautiful girl who hates him.

"Dic is like a brother to Rita," said Mrs. Bays, in explanation of her
daughter's conduct. "Her actions may seem peculiar to a stranger, but