Epilogue
Darcy continued to look back, every birthday of his life, on the day he turned seven and twenty being his most momentous birthday.
And he continued to think of Elizabeth’s agreement to his calls as the best birthday gift of his life.
The two married only two months later, and the very next year, Elizabeth Darcy told him, on his birthday, that she suspected she was carrying his heir. He was thrilled beyond measure.
Years later, she gave him, for his birthday, a miniature of his son James Thomas, then ten years old. Every birthday after one of their four children turned ten, she gave him a miniature of that child. He treasured those miniatures dearly.
Elizabeth gave him many other birthday gifts, of course, and his children gave him precious birthday gifts, as well.
From a rock painted as haphazardly as a four-year-old could paint, to a bouquet of five feathers, from a horse carefully chiselled from elmwood to handkerchiefs embroidered with Sweet Williams—those gifts were precious and, after a suitable period of display or use, were carefully locked away in a treasure box.
But he considered that all of those amazingly dear and important birthday gifts were owed to the gift that Elizabeth saw fit to bestow on him the day he turned seven and twenty—the gift of a chance to make a life with her.
~ The End ~