They would discuss Prison Reform and Kipling and other Subjects in no
way related to the awakening of the Maternal Instinct.

When he owned up to 40 and she had stopped talking about it, the
Reading Habit was no longer a Novelty with him, so merely to kill Time,
he was acting on the Visiting Board of an Orphan Asylum and was a
Director of the Fresh Air Fund and was putting the Office Boy through
a Business College.

About the same time Laura was made the victim of a Conspiracy.

A designing Day Laborer and his Wife deliberately up and died, leaving
a Chick of a Daughter, all helpless and alone.

Laura simply had to go over and grab the Young One and play Mother to
her, because it all happened hardly a Mile from her own Door-Step.

She had been dodging these commonplace and old-fashioned
Responsibilities all her Life and now cruel Circumstances compelled her
to spend Hours in servile Attentions to a stray Specimen.

Of course, she had the Expert Advice of her old friend Edgar, who made
out the Adoption Papers and sent a lot of Merchandise up to the House,
out of the promptings of a broad and general sentiment of Pity for the
Unfortunate.

Even when they stood up to be Married they were still stringing
themselves.

He was bald and grizzled and she was a little droopy around the
Shoulders and had not been able to massage away the more important
Wrinkles.

They scouted the Suggestion that it was a Love Match.

It seemed that she needed a Night Watchman and he was afraid to be
alone in the Dark with the Memories of the Past.

MORAL: After you pass 40 you must take charge of something Human,
even if it is only a Chauffeur.

THE TELLTALE TINTYPE

Once there was a worried Parent whose only Son could not quite make
up his Mind whether to join a High School Frat or go on the Stage.

He was at the long-legged Age and walked Loose and stepped on his own
Feet, and whenever he walked briskly across the Floor to ask some
Tessie to dance with him, every one crowded back against the Wall to
avoid getting one on the Shin.

He combed his Hair straight back, like a Sea Lion, and in Zero Weather
wore a peculiar type of Low Shoe with a Hard-Boiled Egg in the Toe.

His overcoat was of Horse Blanket material with a Surcingle, and the
Hat needed a Hair Cut and a Shave. When he topped off his Mardi Gras
Combination with a pair of Yellow Gloves that sounded like a Cry for
Help and went teetering down the Street, his Father