Earrings

Fiorella was not born with pierced ears. In fact, when she was a child, respectable women wore clip-on earrings, and Mother had a very nice collection of them. But by the time Fio went to college, styles had changed, and Fio noted that the most dashing girls on campus had holes in their earlobes. However, it wasn't till she was married two years later that she got up the nerve to venture off to a doctor's office and get her own ears pierced. Her parents, who regarded pierced ears as a dead give-away of a woman being "foreign," were taken aback, but finally came around and even eventually gave Fio a pair of lovely of pearl and gold studs for Christmas. Of course, Fio being Fio, she later indulged herself in gypsy hoops and danglers, but not in her parents' presence. They would have been afraid her flamboyant ear gear made her look more like someone who'd just hopped off the boat than ever.