ose," the
artist remarked. "That's nothing. I know lots of families where they
don't keep any anniversaries at all."

"No," persisted the mathematician. "I meant what I said, and precisely
what I said. My grandmother did not keep her first fifteen birthdays
because she couldn't. She didn't have them to keep. They didn't happen.
The first time she had a chance to celebrate her birthday was when she
completed her sixteenth year--and I need not tell you that the family
made the most of the event."

"This a real grandmother you are talking about," asked the journalist,
"and not a fairy godmother?"

"I could understand her going without a birthday till she was four
years old," the soldier suggested, "if she was born on the 29th of
February."

"That accounts for four years," the mathematician admitted, "since my
grandmother _was_ born on the 29th of February."

"In what year?" the soldier pursued. "In 1796?"

The professor of mathematics nodded.

"Then that accounts for eight years," said the soldier.

"I don't see that at all," exclaimed the artist.

"It's easy enough," the soldier explained. "The year 1800 isn't a
leap-year, you know. We have a leap-year every four years, except the
final year of a century--1700, 1800, 1900."

"I didn't know that," said the artist.

"I'd forgotten it," remarked the journalist. "But that gets us over
only half of the difficulty. He says his grandmother didn't have a
birthday till she was sixteen. We can all see now how it was she went
without this annual luxury for the first eight years. But who robbed
her of the birthdays she was entitled to when she was eight and twelve.
That's what I want to know."

"Born February 29, 1796, the Gregorian calendar deprives her of a
birthday in 1800," the soldier said. "But she ought to have had her
first chance February 29, 1804. I don't see how----" and he paused in
doubt. "Oh!" he cried, suddenly; "where was she living in 1804?"

"Most of the time in Russia," the mathematician answered. "Although the
family went to England for a few days early in the year."

"What was the date when they left Russia?" asked the soldier, eagerly.

"They sailed from St. Petersburg in a Russian bark on the 10th of
February," answered the professor of mathematics, "and owing to
head-winds they did not reach England for a fortnight."

"Exactly," cried the soldier. "That's what I thought. That accounts for
it."

"I don't see how," the artist declared; "tha