t dear Soames will think? He has so wanted to have a son himself. A
little bird has always told me that."

"Well," said Winifred, "he's going to--bar accidents."

Gladness trickled out of Aunt Juley's eyes.

"How delightful!" she said. "When?"

"November."

Such a lucky month! But she did wish it could be sooner. It was a long
time for James to wait, at his age!

To wait! They dreaded it for James, but they were used to it themselves.
Indeed, it was their great distraction. To wait! For The Times to read;
for one or other of their nieces or nephews to come in and cheer them
up; for news of Nicholas' health; for that decision of Christopher's
about going on the stage; for information concerning the mine of Mrs.
MacAnder's nephew; for the doctor to come about Hester's inclination
to wake up early in the morning; for books from the library which were
always out; for Timothy to have a cold; for a nice quiet warm day, not
too hot, when they could take a turn in Kensington Gardens. To wait, one
on each side of the hearth in the drawing-room, for the clock
between them to strike; their thin, veined, knuckled hands plying
knitting-needles and crochet-hooks, their hair ordered to stop--like
Canute's waves--from any further advance in colour. To wait in their
black silks or satins for the Court to say that Hester might wear her
dark green, and Juley her darker maroon. To wait, slowly turning over
and over, in their old minds the little joys and sorrows, events and
expectancies, of their little family world, as cows chew patient cuds
in a familiar field. And this new event was so well worth waiting
for. Soames had always been their pet, with his tendency to give them
pictures, and his almost weekly visits which they missed so much, and
his need for their sympathy evoked by the wreck of his first marriage.
This new event--the birth of an heir to Soames--was so important for
him, and for his dear father, too, that James might not have to die
without some certainty about things. James did so dislike uncertainty;
and with Montague, of course, he could not feel really satisfied to
leave no grand-children but the young Darties. After all, one's own name
did count! And as James' ninetieth birthday neared they wondered what
precautions he was taking. He would be the first of the Forsytes to
reach that age, and set, as it were, a new standard in holding on to
life. That was so important, they felt, at their ages eighty-seven and
eig