and Angela and Lizzie--I mean Elizabeth. You won't mention what I have
just confided to you, will you, Mr. Flanders?"

Flanders sighed. He had hoped that the petition would not be put into
definite form.

"Certainly not, sir--if you--er--if you'd rather I wouldn't," he
managed to say with a fair show of alacrity. "But, gee!" The half-
muttered ejaculation spoke volumes of regret.

His host smiled complacently. It was settled, so far as he was
concerned. Mr. Flanders was to be depended upon.

"Still snowing when you came in?" he asked, quite irrelevantly but
with interest.

"Yes, sir--hard."

"Good! We'll have bob-sledding on the terrace for the kiddies to-
morrow. I suppose you'd like to know how we happen to have such a
large and growing family. Well, it's all very simple. It is our
practice to acquire a new baby at least once a year. On occasions we
have felt called upon to make it two, and even three, but of late it
seems the more sensible plan to limit ourselves to one. It is our idea
to keep up the practice until I am seventy-five, if God permits me to
live to that age. So, you see, we will have reared a family of thirty-
three children by that time, and we will never be without little
toddlers and prattlers. I am fifty-three now, Mr. Flanders. We are
reasonably sure to have twenty-two additions to the family. The
pitiful part of getting old and decrepit lies in the fact that one's