their legs as upright chairs should do--and the hearth was strewn with
coals from an overturned scuttle. Candle grease solidified on the
mantelpiece and dripped unseen upon the mahogany bookcase--all
unnoticed by the dreamy, desolate Bingles. They were alone with the
annual wreck. Melissa and the five Sykeses were out in the bitter
night, on their frolicksome way to the distant home of the woman who
had so many children she didn't know what to do for them, not with
them. They had gone away with their hands and pockets full, and their
stomachs, too, and they had all been kissed and hugged and invited to
come again without fail a year from that very night.

Mr. Bingle sighed. Neither had spoken for many minutes after the
elevator door slammed behind the excited, shrill-voiced children. Mr.
Bingle always sighed exactly at this moment in his reflections, and
Mrs. Bingle always squeezed his hand fiercely and turned a pair of
darkly regretful eyes upon him.

"I am sorry, dear heart," she murmured, and then he kissed her hand
and said that it was God's will.

"It doesn't seem right, when we want them, need them so much," she
said, huskily.

And then he repeated the thing he always said on Christmas Eve: "One
of these days I am going to adopt a--er--a couple, Mary, sure as I'm
sitting here. We just can't grow old without having some of them about
us. Some day we'll find the right sort of--"

The bedroom door opened with a squeak, slowly and with considerable
caution. The gaunt, bearded face of a tall, stooping old man appeared