Rita endured without complaint her mother's thrusts when she alone received them, but rebelled when Dic was attacked. In the kitchen she told her mother that she would insult Williams if Mrs. Bays again insulted Dic. The girl was so frightened by her own boldness that she trembled, and although the mother's heart showed signs of weakness, there was not time, owing to the scorching turkey, for a total collapse. There was, however, time for a few random biblical quotations, and they were almost as effective as heart failure in subduing the insolent, disobedient, ungrateful, sacrilegious, wicked daughter for whom the fond mother had toiled and suffered and endured, lo! these many years. When Rita and her mother returned to the front room to invite the guests to dinner, Dic thanked Mrs. Bays, and said he would go to the tavern. Rita's face at once became a picture of woe, but she was proud of Dic's spirit, and gloried in his exhibition of self-respect. When Mrs. Bays saw that Dic resented her insult, she insisted that he should remain. She said there was plenty for all, and that there was more room at the table than she had supposed. But Dic took his hat and started toward the door. Tom tried to take the hat from his hand, saying:-- "Nonsense, Dic, you will stay. You must," and Mr. Bays said:-- "Come, come, boy, don't be foolish. 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.