"We'll talk it over to-morrow," said he. "It might be a relief to us to have something like this to occupy our thoughts in case we--we actually have to give Kathleen up to--By the way, Dick tells me he is sailing for Europe to-morrow. I wonder what it means." "Mr. Force? Is she going with him?" "Yes. For three months." She reflected. "I'll tell you what it means, Tom," she said, leaning forward to lay her hand upon his knee. "He has told her everything." "I don't believe it!" "You mark my words, Tom. He has told her. They are going abroad to thrash it all out, that's the long and short of it." "I wonder," said Mr. Bingle, wide-eyed and sober. Long afterward he came out of his reverie, and said: "I forgot to tell you that Swanson spoke to me yesterday about his sister's latest. I was awfully sorry for the poor chap, my dear. He seemed most anxious to see the child comfortably settled. His sister is a scrub-woman in the Metropolitan Life Building. It appears that she has been supplying families with children for the past ten or twelve years. Her husband is a most unfeeling brute. He says that the babies interfere with her work, and so she has to either give them up altogether or let the charity institutions take care of 'em for her. She goes on faithfully having 'em every year, and he goes on objecting to them. Swanson says she has managed to keep two of the older ones, but the last five or six she has been obliged to dispose of. Now, this new one is a bright little thing, he says--quite the flower of the flock. The woman's husband, it seems, has been out of work for seven years, and curses dreadfully about the child. The poor woman spoke to Swanson last week, asking him to see if we wouldn't take this one to raise. Swanson is sure that if we took it now we could be practically certain that it would never acquire the Swedish dialect. Of course--" "You did not give him any encouragement, did you, Tom?" she cried sharply. "Well, not--er--exactly," he said, looking away. "Well, don't!" she exclaimed. "You know I have my heart set on having a French baby next." "So you have," he said brightly. "I'll not forget it, my dear. As a matter of fact, I spoke to Rouquin, our foreign exchange manager, about it not long ago. He is quite French, my dear. He says there will be no trouble about it. It will be no trick at all to get a French baby. He says he already knows of a half-dozen actual descendants of the nobility, aged from one year up to ten, any one of which we can call our own by simply saying the word." "He shall be called Richelieu. Dick for short," mused Mrs. Bingle. "I thought we contemplated a girl," said he. "It is always possible for us to change our minds, isn't it, Tom?"