Lonely, incomplete lives they led, with no bitterness in their souls,
loving each other the more as they tried to fill the void with songs
of resignation. Away back in the early days Mr. Bingle had said that
Christmas was a bleak thing without children to lift the pall--or
something of the sort.
Out of that well-worn conclusion--oft expressed by rich and poor
alike--grew the Bingle Foundation, so to speak. No Christmas Eve was
allowed to go by without the presence of alien offspring about their
fire-lit hearth, and no strange little kiddie ever left for his own
bed without treasuring in his soul the belief that he had seen Santa
Claus at last--had been kissed by him, too--albeit the plain-faced,
wistful little man with the funny bald-spot was in no sense up to the
preconceived opinions of what the roly--poly, white-whiskered, red-
cheeked annual visitor from Lapland ought to be in order to make
dreams come true.
The Bingles were singularly nephewless, nieceless, cousinless. There
was no kindly-disposed relative to whom they could look for the loan
of a few children on Christmas Eve, nor would their own sensitiveness
permit them to approach neighbours or friends in the building with a
well-meant request that might have met with a chilly rebuff.
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