"You're getting later and later, Mail Man. Yesterday it was nine o'clock. To-day it's almost half-past." Mail Man was a chromic individual, his grayish hair blending into the grayish uniform above which his grayish face rose almost indefinably. He was lopsided from much service. "Well, everything's late these days, M'z. Payson. Since the war we haven't had any regular----" "Oh, the war! You make me tired with your war. The war's over!" Mail Man did not defend himself further. Mail men have that henpecked look by virtue of their calling which lays them open to tirade and abuse from every disappointed sweetheart, housemaid, daughter, wife, and mother. "Expecting a letter from Miss Lottie, I suppose?" "Yes. Have you----" "Don't see it here this morning, M'z. Payson. Might be in on the eleven o'clock mail. Everything's late these days since the war." They confidently expected her in December. In December she wrote that it would be January. The letter was postmarked Paris. In January she set the date of her homecoming for February and it was that letter which contained the astounding news of the impending French orphan. The two old women stared at each other, their mouths open ludicrously, their eyes wide. Mrs. Payson had read the letter aloud to Aunt Charlotte there in the living room. "A French child--a French orphan." It was then that Mrs. Payson had looked up, her face as blank of expression as that of a dead fish. She plunged back into the letter, holding the page away from her as though distance would change the meaning of the black letters on the white flimsy page. "Well," said Aunt Charlotte, the first to recover, "that'll be kind of nice, now Jeannette's gone and all. Young folks around the house again. It's been kind of spooky. French child, h'm? That'll be odd. I used to know some French. Had it, when I was a girl, at Miss Rapp's school, across the river. Remember Miss Rapp's s----" "Charlotte Thrift, you're crazy! So's Lottie, crazy. A French orphan!" Another dart at the letter--"Why, it's a baby--a French baby. One of those war babies, I'll be bound.... Where's Belle? I'll get Belle. I'll telephone Belle." Later, at the telephone--"Yes, I tell you that's what it says. A French baby and she's bringing it home. Well, come here and read it for yourself then. I guess I can read. You telephone Henry right away, d'you hear! You tell him to telegraph her, or cable her, or whatever it is, that she can't bring any French baby here. The idea! Why! Girls nowdays! Look at Charley.... Excited? Don't you tell me not to be excited, Belle Payson! I guess you'd be excited----" Henry cabled. He agreed with Mother Payson that it was a little too much. Let the French take care of their own orphans. America'd furnish the money but no wet-nursing.