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"Welcome, my birds," he cried. "What a twitter! What a chatter! Here you all are."

"Nay, jackdaws," said their father—"jackdaws and pies."

They were not afraid of their uncle as they were of their aunt, and clustered round him, teasing and laughing till she appeared. Then their laughter stopped, and they picked up their skirts to bob curtseys.

"Good day, Aunt . . ." "Good day, Aunt."

"Bon jour, chères enfants."

She took each one by the hand and kissed her, for she wanted them to feel at home. She too had been sincere when she spoke of her joy in having them, though she had more reservations than her husband. She wanted them because he wanted them and his brother under his roof; also it was true that Conster Manor seemed to her sometimes very large and empty. But they were creatures apart from her—beings she could not understand. Their noise, their ignorance, their carelessness of good living—in the sense that she understood good living, as an affair of eating and drinking and dressing and thinking and reading and playing and singing—made them a constant threat to her patience. And though the threat never materialized into more than an occasional sharpness, she was afraid for her husband's sake. She would not humiliate him with a shrewd wife. Also, even while she greeted them, she knew that in spite of their talk and laughter Conster would still sometimes feel empty.