He was surprised when he opened the nursery door and stood to one side to allow his wife to precede him inside. He had expected a hush appropriate for a sleeping baby. Instead there was a noisy, cheerful hubbub. But of course-there must be children as well as adults in her family. There was a vast number of the former, it seemed, all rushing about at play, all talking-or, rather, yelling-at once. A few nurses were supervising, but by no means subduing them.

Several of the children stopped what they were doing to see who was coming in. A few of them came closer, and a copper-haired, freckled little boy demanded to know who Edwin was.

“You must remember to mind your manners, Charles,” Elizabeth said, nevertheless showing a human touch by ruffling the hair of the offender.

“This is your… uncle. Charles is Bertie’s eldest,” she explained, naming her brother. She identified the other children in the group, all of them cousins or the children of cousins.

“What is your name?” Charles asked.

“Charles!” Elizabeth exclaimed, sounding embarrassed.

But Edwin held up a hand. “Have you noticed,” he asked, winking at the boy, “that when a lad does not know something he ought to know, adults invariably tell him he should have asked? Yet when he does ask, he is treated as if he had been impertinent?”

“Ye-e-es!” The children were all in loud agreement, and Edwin grinned at them all.

“He is Uncle… Edwin,” Elizabeth explained.

There was a chorus of requests that Uncle Edwin come and play with them.

He held up a staying hand again, chuckling as he did so. Almost all his closest friends had young families, who for some inexplicable reason always saw him as a potential playmate. His friends claimed that it happened because he was still a child at heart. He liked children.