Joan and Peter: The Story of an Education

Early one summer morning in England, in the year 1893 in the reign—which seemed in those days to have been going on for ever and to be likely to go on for evermore—of Queen Victoria, there was born a little boy named Peter. Peter was a novel name then; he was before the great crop of Peters who derived their name from Peter Pan. He was born with some difficulty. His father, who had not been to bed all night, for the trouble of the birth had begun overnight at about nine o’clock, was walking about in the garden in a dewy dawn, thinking the world very dreadful and beautiful, when he first heard Peter cry. Peter, he thought, made a noise like a little frightened hen that something big had caught.... Peter’s mother had been moaning but now she moaned no more, and Peter’s father stood outside and whispered “Oh, God! Oh! Damn them and damn them! why don’t they tell me?”

Then the nurse put her head out of the window; it was a casement window with white roses about it; said “Everything’s all right. I’ll tell you when to come in,” and vanished again.