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
in the aperture; sharp, piercing eyes under thick grey eyebrows
searched the room in a swift, almost unfriendly glance.
"The infernal brats gone, Tom?" demanded Uncle Joe harshly.
Mr. and Mrs. Bingle stiffened in their chairs. The tall old man came
down to the fireplace, disgustedly kicking a stray, crumpled sheet of
tissue paper out of his path.
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