"What kind of comment was that? Your older brother is no angel. I hardly trust him with my sister, and the joke of it all is that they're supposed to be chaperoning us to this party!"

"Jennifer is a grown woman now," Bob said, a note of sarcasm entering his voice. "She knows what's good for her, after all her experiences with that fast college crowd she's been hanging out with."

"Now that is mean! How could you say a thing like that about my sister," she exclaimed. "But I am getting a bit concerned about her. Since Mom and Dad got divorced she just hasn't been the same person."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," he comforted, holding her hand softly. "It's probably just as you say. She's having a little fling, and she'll come out of it fairly soon… I think."

"I wouldn't be so concerned if she were just staying out all night," she sighed. "But it's the pot smoking that I don't like."

"Now that's something we can't do anything about," Bob said slowly. "Your mother's me one who is at fault there."

"I-I don't know. It's so hard for Mom to control her, you know. If Dad were only living with us I think the whole problem would clear right up. As it is, she just laughs right in Mom's face and says that her life is her own business."

"Ellen, I really wish you wouldn't get so darn worked up about all this. Jennifer is twenty-two years old, and by all standards she is a mature adult. If she insists on carrying on and going to bed with every man she meets that's her own affair."

"Now, you stop that!" Ellen shouted at him in sudden anger. "You have no right to talk about my family that way."

"I do if I'm going to marry their daughter, the nice daughter that is," he said abruptly, pulling his hand from her tensed fingers.

"That's enough! There's no reason to condemn her just because of some idle rumors we've heard."

"From what Phil says," Bob replied, "they're more than rumors."