about five
o'clock might have been surprised to see a trail of dog-trotting figures
winding their way heatedly across the meadow. No one but a chance
visitor would be surprised, however, for it was well known to invited
guests that the entire Willetts family ran cross-country down to the
outskirts of London and back every morning before breakfast, a matter of
fourteen miles. In the lead was, of course, Dungeon in running costume,
followed closely by the flaxen-haired Mid and snub-nosed Boola, then
Arlix and Linny, striving valiantly for fourth place but not reckoning
on the fleet-footed Meeda, who was no longer content to hobble in the
vanguard with Grandpa Willetts and Grandpa's old mother, who still
insisted on cross-country running, although she had long since been put
on the retired list at the Club.

[Illustration: "Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on
birth control?"]

"'Oh, Linny,' called out Dungeon over her shoulder, 'you young minx! Why
didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on Birth Control at the
next meeting of the Spiddix? Twiller just told me today. It's too
ripping of you!'

"'Silly goose,' panted Linny, stumbling over a hedgerow, 'how about what
the vicar said the other night about your inferiority complex? It was
toppo, and you know it.'

"'It won't be long now before we'll have disenfranchisement through,
anyway,' muttered Grandpa Willetts, crashing down into a stone quarry,
at which exhibition of reaction a loud chorus of laughter went up from
the entire family, who by this time had reached Nogroton and were
bursting with health."

LX

BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS

For those to whom the purple-and-gold filigreed covers of Florence L.
Barclay's books bring a stirring of the sap and a fluttering of the
susceptible heart, "Returned Empty" comes as a languorous relief from
the stolid realism of most present-day writing. One reads it and swoons.
And on opening one's eyes again, one hears old family retainers
murmuring in soft retentive accents: "Here, sip some of this, my lord;
'twill bring the roses back to those cheeks and the strength to those
poor limbs." It's elegant, that's all there is to it, elegant.

"Returned Empty" was the inscription on the wrappings which enfolded the
tiny but aristocratic form of a man-child left on the steps of the
Foundlings Institution one moonless October night. There was also some
reference to Luke, xii., 6, which in return ref