et, strange as it may appear, there still remained, here and there, a
few young people in the United States who had no desire to be safely
provided for by a Destyn-Carr machine.

Whether there was in them some sporting instinct, making hazard
attractive, or, perhaps, a conviction that Fate is kind, need not be
discussed. The fact remains that there were a very few youthful and
marriageable folk who had no desire to know beforehand what their fate
might be.

One of these unregenerate reactionists was Flavilla. To see her entire
family married by machinery was enough for her; to witness such
consummate and collective happiness became slightly cloying. Perfection
can be overdone; a rift in a lute relieves melodious monotony, and when
discords cease to amuse, one can always have the instrument mended or buy
a banjo.

"What I desire," she said, ignoring the remonstrances of the family, "is
a chance to make mistakes. Three or four nice men have thought they were
in love with me, and I wouldn't take anything for the--experience. Or,"
she added innocently, "for the chances that some day three or four more
agreeable young men may think they are in love with me. One learns by
making mistakes--very pleasantly."

Her family sat in an affectionately earnest row and adjured her--four
married sisters, four blissful brothers-in-law, her attractive
stepmother, her father. She shook her pretty head and continued sewing on
the costume she was to wear at the Oyster Bay Venetian Fete and Go-cart
Fair.

"No," she said, threading her needle and deftly sewing a shining, silvery
scale onto the mermaid's dress lying across her knees, "I'll take my
chances with men. It's better fun to love a man not intended for me, and
make him love me, and live happily and defiantly ever after, than to have
a horrid old machine settle you for life."

"But you are wasting time, dear," explained her stepmother gently.

"Oh, no, I'm not. I've been engaged three times and I've enjoyed it
immensely. That isn't wasting time, is it? And it's _such_ fun!
He thinks he's in love and you think you're in love, and you have such an
agreeable time together until you find out that you're spoons on somebody
else. And then you find out you're mistaken and you say you always want
him for a friend, and you presently begin all over again with a perfectly
new man----"

"Flavilla!"

"Yes, Pa-_pah_."

"Are you utterly demoralized!"

"Demoralized? Why? Everybody behaved